“Some of the best advice available today on the craft of writing.” ~Tanyo Ravicz, author of Ring of Fire
“An excellent resource for writers who are serious about their work.” ~Stephanie Cole, author of Compass North
At age twenty-one, Deb Vanasse was dropped by a bush pilot on a gravel runway in middle of the Alaska wilderness. No roads, no houses, no cars, no people—only a winding brown slough and tundra spread flat as prairie. She had come not for adventure but to live, an isolating but evocative experience that has inspired much of her work, including her books about writing.
Between her mountain home and a glacier-based cabin, she continues to enjoy Alaska’s wild places.
Author Deb Vanassee at Denali
Her family lived on the grounds of the state mental institution where her dad worked. The staff consisted mostly of foreign doctors, so she grew up with children from around the world, always in the shadow of the sprawling hospital and patients who walked the grounds, each more or less in his own little world. Deb lived in her own little world much of the time too. Her favorite hangout was a shed attached to her family’s barracks-style cement block house, where she’d spend hours reading and imagining story worlds.
Deb has been known to…buy way more books than she’ll ever read
Things Deb likes…chocolate, good books, an occasional movie, a good hot shower after a few days of camping, warm flannel sheets, wide open spaces, soft falling snow, her friends
She’ll never get caught…skydiving; she so doesn’t like heights
A favorite/line expression and where it’s from: “There’s a crack in everything; that’s how the light gets in.” Leonard Cohen
Alaskans she most admires: Peggy Shumaker, Elizabeth Peratrovich, DeeDee Jonrowe
Favorite Alaska places: Matanuska Glacier, Kennicott Mine, the Pribilofs
At age twenty-one, Deb Vanasse was dropped by a bush pilot on a gravel runway in middle of the Alaska wilderness. No roads, no houses, no cars, no people—only a winding brown slough and tundra spread flat as prairie. She had come not for adventure but to live, an isolating but evocative experience that inspires much of her work.Like many emerging writers, you may feel compelled to open with action, but keep in mind that understated action can paradoxically evoke a more heightened sense of tension than an over-the-top boom-bang-bam scene. “They threw me off the hay truck about noon,” is how James Cain begins The Postman Always Rings Twice. A simple sentence, but one that leaves readers longing to know more.
In media res takes the reader directly into the middle of a scene. A book that opens with dialogue has the same effect. When readers find themselves suddenly immersed in a scene, they’re grabbing for bits to hang onto. They want to puzzle their way to some clarity. In short, they’re hooked.
