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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SAVVAS MATIATOS<br />
He turned to his right to see the volcano towering above the horizon.<br />
His destination was set. He left the sorrow of the tree behind<br />
and left for greener, or in this case grayer, pastures.<br />
*<br />
The gray in the sky turned into an eerie white, a true statement<br />
at the lifelessness of the land. The man had been walking for<br />
what seemed like hours, and now finally he was at the base of the<br />
volcano. Vegetation had once grown at the base, but now not even<br />
a weed could escape the ash’s tyrannical grasp on life. The man<br />
looked up to see the veil the ash held upon the land; like the atmosphere<br />
of Mars the sky was polluted with dust.<br />
The man started to walk up the volcano, not seeing the storm that<br />
would await him. The incline was steep, but the air made the journey<br />
all the more difficult. Imagine trying to swim through water<br />
when your lungs are halfway full of the substance you’re trudging<br />
through already. This was the predicament the man was now facing.<br />
The air grew thick, his lungs filling with the promiscuous dust. He<br />
fell to his knees. The force of exhaustion was finally kicking in, his<br />
eyes bloodshot, his face encrusted with the gray death. He was now<br />
caught in the middle of the storm, the swirls of ash turned to whips<br />
which cracked upon him. He tried to see anything, but was met<br />
with only more gray. He frantically swung his arms about hoping<br />
that someone would take him out of this misery. His arms rushed<br />
to the ground, his hands running through the soot that imprisoned<br />
the ecosystem. To his luck he found a breather mask attached to<br />
swim goggles. He hastily put the jury-rigged contraption on, trying<br />
to beat death to the finish line. The ash moved more violently,<br />
whisking up small tornadoes which shot more ash into the already<br />
damaged sky. Able to now finally breathe, the man rushed to his<br />
feet and hastily made his retreat out of his would-be tomb. After<br />
about five minutes of running something caught his leg. As he fell<br />
he felt as if wet sand was being rubbed on his arm.<br />
Getting up he realized where he now was, ground zero, the crater.<br />
Southeast Alaska <strong>Student</strong> <strong>Anthology</strong><br />
9
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