Misko finds success as a novelist a decade after hanging up his real estate blazer

PALMER — Like many, Jim Misko caught the creative writing bug in college, only to put it aside to pursue a steadier, more lucrative career.

In his decades as a real estate agent in Anchorage and Oregon, Misko kept writing — and not just trust agreements and escrow paperwork.

He authored books published by New York houses called “Creative Financing in Real Estate”, and “How to Finance Any Real Estate Any Place, Any Time’.

Jill Parson was a fellow Anchorage real estate broker at the time. She read his real estate books, and could tell all along that novelist would one day come out.

“I knew when he retired he was going to write fiction... I told him when he gets that first person to buy it — but he forgot,” Parson laughed Saturday morning at Fireside Books in Palmer, the site of Misko’s latest book signing. “He was always the most fun person in our commercial group meetings. He was always coming up with creative ideas and fun things.”

About 10 years ago, Misko hung up his real estate blazer and began his second career as a fiction writer; a second career that’s proven quite successful.

He’s currently on a book signing tour to promote his latest work — “As All My Fathers Were”, a contemporary fiction piece set in Nebraska about a pair of elderly brothers vying for land left to them according to peculiar stipulations left in their mother’s will. A west-to-east and back again tour of Nebraska was part of the journey that wouldn’t be complete without a return to Alaska, the setting for his first novel — “For What He Could Become.”

“It’s a typical Alaska story — a Native guy leaves his village to go make money and comes back and gets in with the wrong crowd,” Misko said.

Parson, who made sure to drop by Fireside Books on Saturday to catch up with her old colleague and friend, said that’s her favorite of his works.

“Because it’s about Alaska, for one thing, Parson explained. “And, it’s just a very touching story. That’s one I probably need to read again.”

“As All My Fathers Were” has received the best critical reception of any of Misko’s books, garnering four golds from the Benjamin Franklin Awards, the Nebraska Book of the Year Award, and winner of the Feathered Quill Award.

He said he plans to be back in the Mat-Su in October to promote his next book, “The Path of the Wind.”

Set in central Oregon, “The Path of the Wind” is the story of a first-year teacher arriving at a struggling school district.

“It’s run by a very controlling superintendent and he has to decide whether or not to buck the system,” Misko said.

Along the way, Misko runs into plenty of people, who, like him, were attracted to creative writing early, but put down their dream in order to pursue a career. He always makes a point of encouraging these people.

“It’s a craft and you can learn it if you’ve got the imagination to go from something that really happened to something you’re imagining happening. Then it’s putting the book together in the style you like. Everybody has a different style,” Misko said. “I encourage people all the time to take it up. The last two years, there’s four people I’ve helped nurture along through the publishing process. I keep boosting people up to do it. There’s more and more books being published every year, and it’s nice that there’s avenues now, through self-publishing and assisted publishing processes available.”

Contact editor Matt Hickman at 352-2268 or matt.hickman@frontiersman.com.