The Northern Light

Issue date: 7/29/08 Section: News

Media Credit: Brianna Dym Poet Anne Caston reads poetry from her newly published book at the Arts and Science Series. She is one of the local authors, and is even part of the Faculty of the University of Alaska. [Click to enlarge]

A new tradition has started up in UAA this summer. That tradition is the Northern Renaissance Arts and Science Series. For nine days sixteen renowned authors both local and national gave classes, workshops, and public readings on their works and how to further better one's own writing technique.

Most of the workshops and were closed to only the fine arts masters, a small group of 28 UAA students, but the readings of work were open to the public and everyone had a chance to meet with authors, talk with them, and hear new and published work read by the authors themselves.

The authors that were involved in the event this year ranged from Judith Barrington, a British author whose book, "Lifesaving: A Memoir," is world renowned, to local authors such as the University of Alaska's own poet, Anne Caston.

Other authors such as Sherry Simpson and Oscar Kawagley were present, and even Ron Carlson came to open up the event by performing the first reading.

Even though this is the first year the Northern Renaissance Arts and Science Series has run, many people showed up to hear the public readings, and each one offered wisdom and insight into the world of literature.

But the public readings were not all that happened. Students at UAA got to have classes with the authors every day as well as workshops split into three categories: fiction, non-fiction, and poetry. Students also arranged classes with authors outside of the scheduled programs, but workshops will remain closed to the public in years to come.

Some of the classes taught were "The Hedge School: a Theory for Creative Writers" with Linda McCarriston and "Conflict Management" with Rich Chiappone. Both are authors brought to UAA for the Arts and Science Series.

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