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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From Ashes to Ashes<br />
Savvas Matiatos<br />
As he awoke to an ashen landscape, the man realized he was no<br />
longer in the comfort of his studio apartment. The sky was as gray<br />
as the ashen ground; the unnatural stillness garnered fear in his<br />
heart. The trees petrified in ash stood there immune to time’s disease,<br />
frozen without an indication of when to thaw.<br />
“<strong>Where</strong> am I?” the man said to himself, slowly getting off and<br />
brushing away the gray particles.<br />
In front of him lies a volcano, a former husk of its previous self. The<br />
man could smell the burnt flesh of thousands, the death and decay<br />
seeped into his nose. It clung there like a parasite to its host; it had<br />
no intention of leaving. With each breath his throat became more<br />
and more dry, like an unforgiving drought. The volcanic embers<br />
entered his lungs, weighing him down physically, but also making<br />
him anxious. The air was thick with the by-product of the eruption.<br />
<strong>Where</strong> air is supposed to be light and colorless; this air was dusky<br />
and had weight to it. A subtle breeze blew by whisking the ash,<br />
making an abstract swirl. He stood there, motionless, waiting for<br />
something, anything, to give him a sense of direction. His answer<br />
was silence. <strong>Where</strong> there should be birds chirping, silence. <strong>Where</strong><br />
there should be the bustling of a modern metropolis, silence.<br />
<strong>Where</strong> there should be the sound of children playing, silence. After<br />
standing there for what felt like a century, the man finally drew up<br />
enough willpower to walk forward. The sound of the crunching<br />
ash reminded him of the cereal he once loved as a kid. He then<br />
thought back on his fond childhood memories, realizing that those<br />
day of happiness would never come back. He stopped to look at<br />
the tree. The gray coating of the tree made it seem mechanic; both<br />
were chill to the touch. He looked at the branches of the tree to<br />
see a bird’s nest. Within the nest was baby birds. They were being<br />
fed by the ash. This angered the man, how could nature procure<br />
something so terrible? Did it have a higher purpose? Was it just<br />
doing this for a cheap laugh? He then just stood there, staring at<br />
the chilling figures of the birds.<br />
“Why?”<br />
8 <strong>Where</strong> <strong>Am</strong> I?
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