Alaska Dispatch Favorite Books of the Year

Surviving Bear Island has been listed in the Alaska Dispatch News as one of their Favorite Alaska Books of the Year.

I’m thrilled to be on this list along with Alaskan authors Alexis Bunten, Kim Heacox, Catherine Holder Spude, Rosemary McGuire, Camille Seaman, Margaret Thomas, Chad and Darin Carpenter, Lee Goodman, Stuart Archer Cohen, Seth Kantner, Linda Martin, Jeremy Pataky, Eva Saulitis, and Dan O’Neill.

Below is a quote from the article regarding Surviving Bear Island:

Fairbanks author Paul Greci has received widespread and deserved national attention for his young-adult novel “Surviving Bear Island.” The book’s teenage narrator, Tom Parker, becomes stranded on an uninhabited island far out in Prince William Sound after a sea kayaking accident separates him from his father. With winter closing in, Tom has to survive off the island’s minimal bounty while encountering bears, enduring mishaps and coming to terms with the death of his mother and the unknown fate of his father. Greci gets inside his protagonist’s head, offering a fully believable character who gets put through hell. This is no happy romp in the forest. Like all the best young-adult fiction, “Bear Island” is a book for adults, too.–David James

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The ALAN Workshop: What it means to me

 

From 2003 to 2007 I attended the ALAN Workshop, which is a two-day affair where up to 80 Young Adult Literature Authors give talks, sign books and make themselves available to converse with the 500 teachers and librarians who attend. I looked forward to the ALAN Workshop every year for two reasons.

1. The participants bring home a large quantity of some of the best of the year’s Young Adult Literature provided by publishers. As a teacher, I added these books to my Classroom Library.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

That’s me on my treadmill desk where I’ve done a lot of writing over the years.

 

 

2. As a writer, it provided inspiration for me to keep plugging away at my own young adult novel manuscripts.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Flash forward eight years and countless rewrites of several manuscripts, and the publication of Surviving Bear Island, and I got an invitation to speak at the conference that provided endless books for my students and ongoing inspiration for me as a writer.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I was on the Debut Author Panel at the 2015 ALAN Workshop. I was both nervous and excited in the days leading up to the Conference.

 

 

 

 

 

 

But arriving at the Conference and being among all these people who love Young Adult Literature, some new acquaintances and some old friends, I really felt like I had come full-circle, that I had come home as a writer and a teacher after an eight year journey.

 

Meeting Christine Taylor Butler, author of The Lost Tribes, and another Move Books Author.

Reuniting with Daria Plumb, an amazing Alternative Education Teacher and ALAN President.

Reuniting with Kelly Sassi, former Fairbanks Teacher who is now a Professor of English and Education in North Dakota. Meeting her son, Max, for the first time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So, thanks ALAN for providing a supportive home for writers, teachers, and librarians to return to year after year. We may not all make it there every year, but just knowing that its there, carrying the torch of keeping relevant books in the hands of teens, is reassuring.

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Ebook of Surviving Bear Island and Second Printing

After a sea kayaking trip with his father takes a dangerous turn, Tom Parker is stranded on the remote, outer coast of unpopulated Bear Island in the waters of Prince William Sound, Alaska with only a survival kit in his pocket. Desperate to find his father, Tom doesn’t know how long he can survive and must put his survival skills to the test as he fights to reach safety.

“The tension is well-crafted and realistic. Bear Island is a challenging environment to survive but a terrific thrill on the page.”–Kirkus

 

 

 

 

The E-book of Surviving Bear Island is now available for $8.99 at Amazon. It will also be available through Barnes & Noble as a Nook Book soon. And, the hard cover is going to press for a Second Printing.

Thanks, Move Books​  and Eileen Robinson​ for putting Surviving Bear Island out in the world, and to all the readers thus far.

Thanks also to the Junior Library Guild​ for all the work they do to get books into reader’s hands.

Thanks also to  Amy Tipton​ for her expertise in all things books/editing/publishing related.

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