The son of a professional Santa Claus, Rich Welliver somewhat reluctantly inherited the suit in 2005 with the death of his father. That same year, Rich took a motorcycle trip to Alaska and decided to move here when he retired.

The Santa Clause role started as a few appearances for friends, but soon was much more in demand. Rich now lives in North Pole, where he frequently appears at the Santa Claus House. Today he feels the Santa persona provides the most rewarding experiences of his life.

Rich was born in Pennsylvania, lived in many states and England because of his father’s Army career, and joined the military himself after graduating from high school. After 8 years in the U.S. Navy Submarine Service, Rich worked in Washington, DC, for the U.S. Department of Defense for 34 years, retiring in 2009.

Rich Welliver–Santa Claus

Dawnell Smith is a founder and co-owner of Writer’s Block Bookstore & Café. She has lived in Alaska for 30 years and worked as a brewer, journalist, nonprofit administrator, communications strategist, and mom, among other things. She currently makes a living in the nonprofit and gig economy. On the rare occasion she’s not working, she creates essays, poems and other mixed-genre literary work.

Occupying a storefront that was formerly an adults-only porn store on Spenard Road in Anchorage, The Writer’s Block started with the idea for a community gathering place. Through the passions of its four founders, a community hub was created. The Writer’s Block is a bookstore, an art space, a coffee shop, and a beer and wine bar. A place for reading, but also for song, spoken word, and performance, as well as for writing, connecting, thinking.

Dawnell Smith

Kathleen Witkowska Tarr’s book We Are All Poets Here (VP&D House, 2018) is narrative nonfiction, part-memoir, part-biography, which involves Thomas Merton and his 1968 surprise sojourn to Alaska.

Alaska was one of the last places the Trappist monk and spiritual thinker saw before he met his tragic, accidental death in 1968.

Kathleen is a long-time Alaskan and nonfiction writer who has lived in many parts of the state. Her work has appeared in a wide range of literary and commercial publications, including contributions to the anthologies, We Are Already One, 1915-2015, Thomas Merton’s Message of Hope (Fons Vitae Press, 2015), and Merton & the World’s Indigenous Wisdom (2018).

Kathleen currently sits on the board of the Alaska Humanities Forum. For two years she served as a Mullin Scholar at USC’s Institute for Advanced Catholic Studies, and is a fellow at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts.

Kathleen was named a William Shannon Fellow by the International Thomas Merton Society and is the founder of the Alaska Chapter of the International Thomas Merton Society. Kathleen earned an MFA in Creative Nonfiction at the University of Pittsburgh in 2005.

She lives and writes in Anchorage under the shadow of the Chugach Mountains.

Kathleen Tarr

Alaska Writer Laureate Ernestine Hayes belongs to the Kaagwaantaan clan of the Tlingit nation. Her first book, Blonde Indian, an Alaska Native Memoir, received an American Book Award and an Honoring Alaska Indigenous Literature (HAIL) Award. It was also a Native America Calling Book of the Month and finalist for the Kiriyama Prize and PEN Nonfiction Award, and was the inaugural selection for Alaska Reads. Her works have appeared in Studies in American Indian Literature, Yellow Medicine Review, Cambridge History of Western American Literature, and other forums. Her poem “The Spoken Forest” is installed at Totem Bight State Park, and her comments on Indigenous identity are installed in the Alaska State Museum. Her latest book, The Tao of Raven, weaves narratives and reflection in the context of Raven and the Box of Daylight.

At the age of 50, Hayes enrolled at the University of Alaska Southeast (UAS) to complete an education that had ended when she dropped out in tenth grade. She received a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing and Literary Arts and is now Associate Professor at UAS. Known as an advocate for social justice, Hayes shares her story to encourage and inspire people on their paths.

Ernestine Hayes

Julia O’Malley is a third-generation Alaskan, writer, teacher, and editor at the Anchorage Daily News. She’s written for The New York Times, the Washington Post, The Guardian, and National Geographic, among other publications. She started her journalism career as a high school intern at the Anchorage Daily News 23 years ago.

Julia was the visiting Atwood Chair of Journalism at the University of Alaska Anchorage from 2015-2017, where she taught food writing, social media, community reporting, and digital journalism. She’s been the recipient of numerous national journalism awards for feature and food writing, including a nomination for a James Beard Award in 2018.

Julia O’Malley

David G. Brown grew up and worked in Woonsocket, RI. He is the father of two sons, has two grandchildren, and lives with his significant better half, Maureen Hanlon. An avid reader and writer, he credits the Creative Writing program at Cuesta College (CA) and the Alaska Writers Guild for advancing his writing career. Brown freelanced for The Woonsocket Call, Castro Valley Forum (CA), and Edible East Bay (CA). He is the author of a true crime book, Deacon’s Crossbow, and his current writing project is a historical novel, Return of the Free Faller. Extra-curricular activities include politricks (disliking it), sports (especially fishing), music, creative writing workshops, and spending as much time as possible with his dog, Kaya. He resides in Anchorage, Alaska.
Brown received the Alaska Writers Guild’s 2012 Writer’s Achievement Award.

(From the back cover of David G. Brown’s latest book, Shadowing Dizzy Gillespie, 2017) In celebration of Dizzy Gillespie’s 100th birthday, author David G. Brown (Deacon’s Crossbow) shares his intimate experiences and memoirs of this humanitarian, innovator, and magical musician. After a chance meeting in Georgetown, 1985, Brown had the opportunity to spend countless hours with Dizzy at performances, testimonials, all-night card-playing sessions, hotels, restaurants, and street corners.
Brown said, “Without question the most remarkable man I have ever met. We shared tears and gut-busting laughs that are etched in my mind forever. God Bless John Birks ‘Dizzy’ Gillespie, who, by the way, wasn’t dizzy at all.”

Along with a book-load of anecdotes, there are select and unique photos spread throughout.

David Brown

Dr. Jennifer Burns is a Professor of biological sciences at the University of Alaska Anchorage. She came to Anchorage in 2000, following a gradual move north from Berkeley (undergraduate degree) California, with stops in Santa Cruz (Postdoctoral research), Seattle (MSc) and Fairbanks (PhD).

Her research focuses on understanding how the age and physiological status influences the diving and foraging abilities and behavior of marine mammals. She has conducted research on several Alaska species (northern fur seals, sea otters, harbor seals and Steller sea lions), but most of her recent work has taken place in Antarctica, where she, and her graduate students, have conducted studies on Weddell seals. This work has entailed spending long periods of time (Nov-Feb) living at McMurdo Station (a US research base), Antarctica, and traveling daily out on the sea ice to locate and collect data from adult females and their pups.

End products of her research include scientific papers published in peer-reviewed journals, but have also included a children’s book, talks at local schools, and oral presentations to scientists, the public, and kids. In public presentations, she strives to convey the excitement of being a scientist who works in a remote location on questions that have–perhaps previously unappreciated–relevance to local concerns about marine ecosystem health and wildlife populations.

Currently, she is commuting between Anchorage and Washington DC, where she is serving as a program officer at the National Science Foundation.

Dr. Jennifer Burns