Alaska Women Speak teams up with Eagle River writers group for reading on International Women’s Day

EAGLE RIVER — International Women’s Day in Alaska wrapped up Wednesday night with a series of readings from women, in a partnership between Alaska Women Speak and an Eagle River-based writers group.

Seven poets and fiction writers from around the state took to the podium in a back room at Jitters coffee shop in Eagle River, as guests of The Living Room: Stories for Grownups, which holds monthly events in their ‘no-fear space,’ and as often as possible, incorporating a theme.

“It’s friends reading for friends,” said Sue May, one of three organizers of The Living Room. “This was one of the best nights we’ve had.”

Last month, the group hosted a reading by Veterans, and on April 8 they’ll hold their final meeting before taking a summer hiatus until September.

For Alaska Women Speak, the event was part of their celebration of 25 years as a magazine, publishing poetry and literature written by Alaskan women.

“It’s all grassroots, all volunteer,” said AWS President Carmen Davis. “This year our goals are to strengthen sponsorships and find venues where women can share their stories. We got a mini grant from the Alaska Humanities Forum which will allow us to share women’s stories in 60 new communities in Alaska.”

Davis said the group’s next reading will be April 28 at the Homer Bookstore in Homer.

When Megan Zlatos isn’t working on her poetry and short stories, the opening to one she read Wednesday night, she works for the Alaska Humanities Forum. Originally from Indianapolis, she said Alaska reinvigorated her desire to write.

“I wrote a lot when I was in school, but I would say I took a decade-long hiatus before moving to Alaska,” Zlatos said. “Coming to Alaska, it has such an open and welcoming community of Writers who helped me get back into the swing.”

Mary Samuel, a poet ‘without a designated form,’ as she describes it, recently returned from travels in Ireland and shared her highly tactile style with the audience in a trio of poems.

“I haven’t read out loud poetry in the U.S. — once I did in Oregon,” Samuel said. “In the last year in Ireland, I tried to exercise that muscle while there — did it where I knew no one (and tonight) I tried it out in front of people I might see next week.”

Getting writers over their fear of public speaking is among the benefits of groups like The Living Room.

“I think it went well; it’s a good mix of prose and poetry in a relaxed atmosphere,” said May, the evening’s emcee. “Sometimes even the most talented creative writers (struggle with reading their work in public)… It’s a very intimate thing to do.”

Capping off the evening was Seward-based poet Christy Everett. She opened with ‘Monster’, an intensely personal prose poem about dealing with a special needs child. It was the poem she read on her way to winning the title at The Moth slam poetry competition in Anchorage last month.

The Moth tours nationally and its excerpts are played on NPR stations throughout the country. Each contestant puts their name in a hat, and that night at the Atwood Concert Hall, Everett was fortunate enough to have her’s picked.

From there it was up to judges from the audience to decide the winner.

“I got picked in the second half of the show and I felt good about the store I shared,” Everett said. “But there were some really funny stories that night and some that were really powerful. When I got through with my story, I got the scores and I knew I was in the lead, but I didn’t know I was going to win.”

Everett said she began writing as a kid by writing down quotes from songs she liked and writing songs and journal entries of her own.

But it wasn’t until she arrived in Alaska, seeing the Northern Lights on a ferry on her move from the northeast, and then seeing the Matanuska Glacier in August on her drive to Anchorage that the writing bug was rekindled.

“I had this thought, ‘why would I move back to Maine when I could live here forever?’” Everett said. “Wildflowers were out. It was a sunny day and I couldn’t believe how warm it was and I thought, ‘yeah, I’m going to stay here.’”

Davis said it wasn’t intentional that the reading coincided with International Women’s Day, but it was apropos.

“It is serendipitous,” Davis said. “Also it’s Women’s History Month, so it’s naturally great timing — the stars are aligned.”