Where Am I? Sitka Story Lab Student Anthology
The Island Institute's Sitka Story Lab program released this new book of Southeast Alaskan student writing in May 2016. Called Where Am I?: Stories of Strange Landscapes, Wrong Turns, and New Worlds, the anthology features fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and zany creative experiments that convey the disorientation and the discovery that young people experience, from being in the wilderness to simply growing up. The young writers come from Sitka, Hoonah, Haines, Wrangell, and Skagway, and are as young as nine years old and as old as eighteen. "The writing ranges from fantastic and playful to emotionally moving and dark," said Story Lab Coordinator Sarah Swong. "I'm impressed at how creative and varied these writings are, and at how open students were to feedback and improving their work." The project offered students the chance to write a piece for publication and to hone their writing with an editor.
The Island Institute's Sitka Story Lab program released this new book of Southeast Alaskan student writing in May 2016.
Called Where Am I?: Stories of Strange Landscapes, Wrong Turns, and New Worlds, the anthology features fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and zany creative experiments that convey the disorientation and the discovery that young people experience, from being in the wilderness to simply growing up. The young writers come from Sitka, Hoonah, Haines, Wrangell, and Skagway, and are as young as nine years old and as old as eighteen.
"The writing ranges from fantastic and playful to emotionally moving and dark," said Story Lab Coordinator Sarah Swong. "I'm impressed at how creative and varied these writings are, and at how open students were to feedback and improving their work."
The project offered students the chance to write a piece for publication and to hone their writing with an editor.
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KATIE HOLMGREN<br />
Not daring to put my hand in the pocket again, I lifted my jacket<br />
up to my face and peered inside. It was the same beautiful speck,<br />
except this time it rested in a little bed of black ashes. It had<br />
burned my boarding pass.<br />
“Miss?” The flight attendant questioned as I looked at her frightenedly.<br />
What was going on?<br />
Then her face morphed into someone else’s. It was the face of the<br />
old woman surrounded by the same now-angrier hues I had seen<br />
in the star. She started cackling madly, her eyes cutting through<br />
mine. I stepped back and shook my head, and then the flight at<br />
tendant was there again, looking at me curiously.<br />
I felt like I was going to throw up.<br />
“I’ll be right back,” I mumbled then jogged to the restroom. In<br />
the mirror, I saw my sweltering, red-faced reflection and then<br />
the sink. I rushed towards it and turned the cold water all the<br />
way up and splashed it on my face, but the heat was still there. In<br />
fact, it was even more unbearable, so I took a breath and plunged<br />
my whole face under the icy spout. The coldest it felt was mildly<br />
lukewarm. That’s when I noticed steam. There was steam coming<br />
off my face.<br />
I stared in shock and heard a toilet flush in one of the stalls. They<br />
couldn’t see me this way.<br />
Trembling with adrenaline, I shut myself in a stall and started to<br />
hyperventilate through my completely dry mouth. My eyes watered<br />
and I swear I could see the heat waves radiating around me.<br />
They were colorful and sparkly, dark and diamond-like, the colors<br />
you see before you pass out. I put a hand on the wall to steady<br />
myself and then tore off my coat. I flung it onto the ground just in<br />
Southeast Alaska <strong>Student</strong> <strong>Anthology</strong><br />
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