The rousing sea stories are all here: The dramas of near-death battles, the sickening tragedy of lovers and friends lost to the waters - but this is not the whole story. This collection represents an extraordinary holistic view of Alaskan fishing: Not just the dying, but the living; not just the obsessive doing of fishing, but the passionate being as well. Readers will understand why so many are hooked, unwilling or unable to leave this uncommon life. Collectively, the 15 fisher-writers in this anthology have fished cod, halibut, salmon, crab, and herring. Some have fished commercially for several seasons; others have spent most of their lives on the water. Included are Moe Bowstern, Michael Crowley, Wendy Erd, Leslie Leyland Fields, Naphtali Fields, Erin Freistrad, Joel Gay, Sig Hansen, Mary Jacobs, Nancy Lord, Marta Sutro, Toby Sullivan, Joe Upton, Spike Walker, and Shannon Zellerhoff.
A resident of Kodiak, Alaska, Leslie Leyland Fields is a wife, mother of six, commercial fisher, world traveler, writer, editor, and teacher of creative nonfiction in Seattle Pacific University's Master of Fine Arts Program. For more information, visit www.leslieleylandfields.com. Leslie is the author of seven books including The Spirit of Food: 34 Writers on Feasting and Fasting Toward God (Waterbrook Press, div. of Random House) Surprise Child (Waterbrook Press, div. of Random House), Surviving the Island of Grace (Thomas Dunne), Out on the Deep Blue: Women, Men and the Oceans They Fish (St. Martin’s), The Entangling Net: Alaska’s Commercial Fishing Women Tell Their Lives (Univ. of Illinois Press), and The Water Under Fish (Trout Creek Press). Her books have been reviewed in the (London) Times Literary Supplement, The Chicago Tribune, Sports Illustrated for Women, The Portland Oregonian, The Seattle Times, Women and Health, the Utne Reader, Oregon Review, and many others. Her essays have appeared in numerous publications, including The Atlantic Monthly, Orion, Image: Art, Faith, Mystery, Best Essays Northwest, Christianity Today, It’s a Girl: Women Writers on Raising Daughters, On Nature: Great Writers on the Great Outdoors, A Mile in Her Boots: Women Who Work in the Wild, America and the Sea: A Maritime History, and many others. Her poetry has appeared in The Seattle Review, the Bellingham Review, the Northern Review, Patches of Godlight: Father Tim’s Favorite Quotes, and many more.
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