49 Writers Active Voice Podcast

Katie’s guest Josh Fortenbery plays live tracks and reflects on the writing and music of his debut album. Southeast Alaska grown and produced, No Such Thing as Forever is getting strong reviews in Americana circles from across the country to across the pond. Fortenbery’s songwriting is informed by both his immediate and the greater human family. “I’m just trying to be honest about my grief, anxiety, and carelessness, and hope that resonates with people,” he says. “I’m trying to remember what ties me to the folks I love and folks I’ve never met.” Josh is a member of the Muskeg Collective, a team of Alaskan string band leaning leaning singer songwriters and musicians uplifting each others writing and playing.

Katie's guest for this episode is Kate Troll, author of a memoir chronicling how in her early seventies, she met two siblings for the first time. And how these discoveries both challenged and strengthened her newfound family and her relationships with the siblings she grew up with. All in Due Time, A Memoir of Siblings, Genealogy, Secrets and Love, can be found at bookstores in Alaska and online.

In this episode, host Katie Bausler chats with Lucian Childs, author of Dreaming Home, a powerful collection of six linked short stories on the outing of a gay teenager by his younger sister, his father’s violent reaction and how that trauma ripples through the course of four decades. The stories, set in Texas, the San Francisco Bay Area and Florida, deftly weave issues like conversion therapy, Queer Youth homeless, combat veteran PTSD, and the AIDS pandemic. Since its summer 2023 release Dreaming Home has made the best books lists of the New York Times, The Globe and Mail, LAMBDA Literary Review and more.

In her debut album, Sisters of White Chapel, Alaskan writer and musician Annie Bartholomew brings a fresh approach to traditional folk music, channeling the under told stories of some of the working women of Alaska's Gold Rush. And as she tells 49 Writers Active Voice producer and host Katie Bausler, sex work was the only choice for many women in late 19th century mining towns. Bartholomew wanted to know more about their lives. So she wrote an album of short stories. A few of the haunting and catchy tunes are featured in this episode, kicked off by Bartholomew's adaptation of The Cuckoo, with her on Clawhammer banjo.

Beth Ann Mathews, her husband Jim and nine year old son Glen were living a full and vibrant life in Alaska’s capital Juneau, which, as she describes lies, “between the ocean and a retreating glacier, a dynamic landscape that challenged and nurtured us.” She could not have imagined the challenges the family trio would overcome when Jim sustained a rare type of stroke brought on by a relatively common task. They’re the focus of her debut book, "Deep Waters, a Memoir of Loss, Alaska Adventure and Love Rekindled." You can find this work of nonfiction on relationship resilience at your local bookstore or online. To learn more visit the author's website at bethannmathews.com

Acclaimed author Melinda Moustakis on her debut novel, Homestead. In this first 49 Writers Active Voice Podcast taped LIVE, we go back in time to the last years before Alaska became a state, and the tumultuous relationship of unlikely homesteaders. Inspired by the story of the author's grandparents, Homestead was reviewed "absolutely remarkable" by the Historical Novel Society. And "spare, exquisite, tough and lovely" by the New York Times. Pre-book signing chat with host Katie Bausler followed by audience questions. Recorded March 21st, 2023 at Hearthside Books along Gastineau Channel in Juneau, Alaska!

Tommy Orange on his commended debut novel "There, There", which tells the intertwining stories of Native Americans en route to a pow wow in Orange's hometown of Oakland, California. He discusses what to expect from the highly anticipated sequel, the current reckoning of the past genocide of Native Americans, white supremacy and the quest for hope versus hate. Since its 2018 publication,"There, There" has been placed on academic reading lists and a TV series based on the book is in the works. "There, There" has been honored with many awards, including the American Book Award. PEN/Hemingway judges deemed it, "as acutely attuned to our cultural and political condition as it is to the indelible legacy of violence that brought us here."

Linnea Lentfer reads passages from and discusses her debut novel. "Hold the Tide" is told by a young girl who like Lentfer, is raised hunting deer and gathering berries in remote and wild Southeast Alaska. Unlike the author, her protagonist grew up in a prior century, the child of a shunned and threatened single mother. Lentfer began writing her book when she was 12, the same age as her narrator. "Hold the Tide" was published as she graduated from high school and began college. "More than a page-turner, more than a great read, this is a significant and beautiful book about the courage of women in a cold, but life-graced land." -Kathleen Dean Moore, Author, "Earth's Wild Music"

Ohio author Bonnie Proudfoot discusses and reads passages from her debut novel with Active Voice host and producer Katie Bausler. Goshen Road is told through the alternating voices of a working class family in rural Appalachia over the course of a generation. The book holds stories of a far from easy life in a time of societal transition in one of the most culturally rich and misunderstood parts of the United States.

"Last year felt like we were all going through a bunch of rainy days," Erin Heist told Active Voice host Katie Bausler. When the pandemic shut down life as we know it, this Alaskan singer-songwriter had a ready outlet, a songwriting project complete with an online writing group and deadlines. The result is her debut recording, Another Rainy Day, a collection of songs of "grit, loss, and redemption," recorded, mixed and produced with her cousin, producer and DJ Patrick Troll.