This week, I’d like to introduce you to an incredible person that I get to work with on a fairly regular basis. Nancy Lord isn’t just an amazing author, she’s an phenomenal teacher and environmental advocate.
Nancy Lord, a Homer writer of fiction and nonfiction, in the last thirty years has participated in 23 different artist residency programs, some of them multiple times. She has found that she writes as much in a one-month residency as she does in the other eleven months of a year (when “life” gets in the way.) Her writing mostly has an environmental bent, and her books include Fishcamp, Beluga Days, and Early Warming. Most recently she edited the anthology 
Made of Salmon: Alaska Stories from the Salmon Project. Her novel, The Pteropod Gang, is forthcoming next year. She also teaches creative writing in Homer and in the low-residency M.F.A. program at the University of Alaska Anchorage and science writing in Johns Hopkins’ on-line graduate science writing program. She is a former Alaska Writer Laureate. She loves beachcombing, bird and wildlife watching, and libraries. Her webpage is writernancylord.com.
Storyknife Writers Retreat 
Well, I am so happy to learn about Nancy Lord! I grew up in Clam Gulch and attended elementary school in Ninilchik, then transferred to Kasilof when Tustumena School was being built. We made trips to Homer, where I remember my mother buying jams in a little store and my Dad buying King Crab at the fisheries. My parents homesteaded in Alaska in 1952; they are both still living and doing fairly well. My Dad is 92, and my Mom, 89.
I’ve since wondered whether lingon berries are the same as the low bush Alaskan cranberries. My Mom made jam from them and moss berries, wild raspberries and dew berries. We passed through Oregon to visit friends who had managed the Westward Inn in Anchorage, and my folks fell in love with Eastern Oregon. I started high school here, went on to university and grad school, became a teacher and high school administrator. Now I’m retired and writing, too.
I will definitely look for Nancy’s stories. I am excited to do so! I have a dear friend Susan Steinbach, who lives in Kasilof, has a B&B there and also fishes commercially. She is the sister of Stephen Webb. I’ll ask her whether she’s read any of Nancy’s books.
Thank you so much for posting information about this writer!