Pandemic Update: A Thin Sheet of Ice

I know this pandemic has had impacts on everyone both professionally and personally. We’ve experienced one death in our extended family and know several people who’ve contracted the virus.

As a writer I had a novel, Hostile Territory, come out about 6 weeks before the shutdowns began in March, and, for good reason, had six book events cancelled for the Spring and early summer. Then the branch of Macmillan that published Hostile Territory closed. My two books with them (The Wild Lands and Hostile Territory) will be reassigned to another house within Macmillan and will still be available in hardcover, paperback, e-book and audio book anywhere books are sold.

I have another forthcoming novel, Follow The River (Move Books), where the release date has been delayed due to the pandemic.

My job as a Special Education Teacher (grades K thru 3) has bounced between in-person and remote instruction. I’ve adjusted to teaching with a mask on while in-person and consciously taking screen-breaks when my job is more zoom-heavy like it is now. Even though I know that zoom instruction pales in comparison to in-person, I am continually amazed and impressed by the resolve my students have to show up and try. As a writer, that’s my basic formula for seeing a novel through from start to finish—show up and try.

As I look at what I’ve written above, I know that I am extremely fortunate, and that others have lost close family and friends, have seen their jobs evaporate, and seen their own children significantly impacted by distance education. I hope everyone’s lives are re-balanced in the near future with the prospects of a vaccine on the horizon.

During the pandemic, I’ve taken solace in the outdoor spaces abundant in Alaska. While taking a hike, a snowshoe, a run, or a ski, feels normal on one level, in the backdrop there’s still this feeling that all is not well with the world, like we’re all moving about on a thin sheet of ice.

Below are a few recent photos of landscapes I travel through that feed my soul.

Paul Greci is the author of The Wild Lands (Macmillan 2019) and Surviving Bear Island (Move Books 2015), a 2015 Junior Library Guild Selection and a 2016 Scholastic Reading Club Selection and Hostile Territory (Macmillan Jan. 2020). Forthcoming is Follow the River (Move Books Winter 2020-21) . You can order all of Paul’s books here.

Thanks for stopping by.

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My Latest Novel: Hostile Territory

 

Hostile Territory, the novel I wrote during the last two years of my father’s life, comes out in a couple of months. Not a day goes by where I don’t think of my father. I think he would’ve liked this story. I’m sad that he didn’t get to see the book in print but I have lots of memories of writing it while sitting by his bedside.

Below is a snippet of the latest review, spoilers excluded.

…The writing style and details bring this book to life; readers will feel like they are in Alaska alongside the characters. The challenges the teens undergo are well drawn and believable. VERDICT Recommended for teenagers who like postapocalyptic adventure or are fans of Gary Paulsen’s Hatchet.—School Library Journal

From the Jacket Flap:

In Paul Greci’s Hostile Territory, a catastrophic earthquake strands four teens in the Alaskan wilderness―and leaves them without a civilization to return to.

Josh and three other campers at Simon Lake are high up on a mountain when an earthquake hits. The rest of the camp is wiped out in a moment―leaving Josh, Derrick, Brooke, and Shannon alone, hundreds of miles from the nearest town, with meager supplies, surrounded by dangerous Alaskan wildlife.

After a few days, it’s clear no rescue is coming, and distant military activity in the skies suggests this natural disaster has triggered a political one.

Josh and his fellow campers face a struggle for survival in their hike back home―to an America they might not recognize.

The book pubs. on Jan 29, 2020–It’s available in hardcover, ebook, and audio. You can pre-order it now if you like.

Paul Greci is the author of The Wild Lands (Macmillan 2019) and Surviving Bear Island (Move Books 2015), a 2015 Junior Library Guild Selection and a 2016 Scholastic Reading Club Selection. Forthcoming is Follow the River (Move Books March 2020) and Hostile Territory (Macmillan Jan. 2020). You can order all of Paul’s books here.

Thanks for stopping by.

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Alaska Book Week Events

 

To kick off Alaska Book Week, I’ll be doing a First Friday Book Signing at Alaskana Raven Books & Things in the Co-op Plaza in Fairbanks on Friday October 4th from 5 to 8. I’ll be signing copies of Surviving Bear Island and The Wild Lands and I’ll have info. about my new books coming out in December and January. Please stop by and say hi if you are making the First Friday rounds in Fairbanks.

Here’s a link to the list of events happening all over the state of Alaska from October 3rd through the 19th: Alaska Book Week Schedule and Events

Paul Greci is the author of The Wild Lands (Macmillan 2019) and Surviving Bear Island (Move Books 2015), a 2015 Junior Library Guild Selection and a 2016 Scholastic Reading Club Selection. Forthcoming is Follow the River (Move Books March 2020) and Hostile Territory (Macmillan Jan. 2020). You can order all of Paul’s books here.

Thanks for stopping by.

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Baked Alaska: Climate Change

 

Byers Lake Sept. 2017

My wife and I live in Fairbanks, Alaska and try to make at least one trip per year to Byers Lake to spend a few days hiking, canoeing, bird watching, and viewing bears from hopefully safe distances. The forest landscape in all seasons provides a backdrop of beauty, surrounding the lake.

Until this summer (2019), our last trip to Byers Lake was September 2017 when the landscape was an explosion of yellow interspersed with dark green from the many spruce trees that are part of the forest. The spruce trees are green all the time so you don’t notice them as much as the birches and aspens which change shades from light to dark green and then to yellow.

This June (2019) when Dana and I arrived at Byers Lake the landscape was starkly different. Most of the spruce trees that had been alive just 20 months ago were now dead or dying.

Byers Lake June 2019

Byers Lake June 2019

One result of climate change, which is accelerated in Alaska, is that the warmer winters are allowing the spruce bark beetles to survive in much larger numbers instead of being killed by the traditionally coldly temperatures, and the longer summers are allowing them to complete their life cycle in one year instead of two. The beetle larvae eat the layer of the tree that transports nutrients, effectively starving it. Although the beetles are a natural part of the environment, they are thriving due to the warming climate.

Byers Lake is but one of many places undergoing intense change in Alaska. As an Alaska fiction writer, climate change has naturally crept into my stories.

My recently published YA novel, The Wild Lands, is a survival story set in the future in a climate-change-altered Alaska. Being at Byers Lake made me feel like I was living in my novel even though the novel does not address the spruce bark beetle infestation at all. The Wild Lands (Macmillan January 2019), is a story that travels a path in Alaska 80 years in the future where the consequences of climate change play out.

My soon to be published middle grade novel, Follow the River (Move Books November 6^th, 2019) also has a climate change element in the plot.

 

Paul Greci writes young adult and middle grade fiction. His stories are set in the Alaska wilderness, where climate change is an ongoing threat to the ecosystems.

Paul Greci is the author of The Wild Lands (Macmillan 2019) and Surviving Bear Island (Move Books 2015), a 2015 Junior Library Guild Selection and a 2016 Scholastic Reading Club Selection. Forthcoming is Follow the River (Move Books March 2020) and Hostile Territory (Macmillan Jan. 2020). You can order all of Paul’s books here.

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The Wild Lands: Reader Reviews

The Wild Lands has received some great editorial reviews from the press.

Snippets of reviews, spoilers excluded, are listed below.

“This fast-paced book contains all the hallmarks of a classic wilderness survival novel (deadly terrain, vicious predators, literal cliff-hangers) and the best of the postapocalyptic genre … The author’s decades of Alaskan wilderness experience is evident throughout … A great high-stakes wilderness survival tale.” ―School Library Journal

“Heart-thumping suspense for readers who liked Rick Yancey’s The 5th Wave.” ―Booklist

“Heart-racing… A rugged wilderness lover’s post-disaster survivalist tale.” ―Kirkus Reviews

“Raw and accessible. Offering hints of Hatchet with markedly more manmade danger.” ―Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books

“The themes of teamwork, choice and free will are incredibly well done … an intense and thrilling ride.” ―TeenReads.com

If you read The Wild Lands, please consider leaving a short review on Amazon or Good Reads–a couple of sentences and a rating will suffice. In this day and age reader reviews have an impact on the visibility a book receives and my hope is that people who are drawn to page-turning adventure stories will be able to find The Wild Lands.

Thanks for stopping by.

Paul Greci is the author of The Wild Lands (Macmillan 2019) and Surviving Bear Island, a 2015 Junior Library Guild Selection and a 2016 Scholastic Reading Club Selection. Forthcoming is Follow the River (Move Books March 2020) and Hostile Territory (Macmillan Jan. 2020).

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