Expanses tend to fill up with stories. That’s just one of the realizations our NaNoWriMo team of rollicking writing evangelists has made this week while preaching novel-writing in small-town Alaskan libraries.
It all started when Chris Baty co-piloted our floatplane to a splash landing in the bay outside of Craig, Alaska. Or so goes the tale as he tells it. He actually just sat in the copilot’s seat on the flight up, but such literal details don’t matter when creating stories that speak to higher truths.
Since our splashdown, I’ve heard stories about people who live in the bush and mush a team of dogs for days to get provisions, about moose that eat cabbage out of people’s sinks (and lick their cars for the salt), and about fishermen who forbid bananas aboard their boats because they ward off fish.
