Too Close to Home?
Living with "drill, baby" on Alaska's Kenai Peninsula                

 McKibben Autumn Jackinsky's Russian-Alutiiq great-great-great-grandparents were among the founders of Ninilchik village on the Cook Inlet side of the Kenai Peninsula. As a longtime Alaska journalist she has reported on the oil and gas industry from several perspectives. Now, with what author-activist Adam Briggle calls "an all too rare open-mindedness," she has interviewed families affected pro or con by the industry's presence in the area, as well as civic leaders, alternative energy advocates and others. In four unsparing chapters woven through Too Close to Home? she also tells her own family and personal story, on the way to a decision about oil and gas exploration on her inherited three-acre share of Jackinsky land. The book, available mid-June 2016, includes an extensive bibliography and a full index. ISBN: 978-0-9838628-6-4, 400 pages, $24.50 (standard bookstore discounts apply, as well as a courtesy discount for libraries).
                                                            

  "This engrossing account of what it means to ordinary Alaskans when the oil industry shows up on their doorsteps," says Bill McKibben, founder of 350.org and author of Deep Economy and other works, "is a good reminder that the damage from fossil fuels can hit hard locally on its way to the atmosphere and the climate." (NOTE: Author McKibben Jackinsky's first name is her mother's family name; her only connection with Bill McKibben is their mutual commitment to a healthy planet.)

For information on coming events, contact the author at mckibben.jackinsky@gmail.com or the publisher at jrbpels@hardscratchpress.com.

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Other recent books (see also the Catalog):

Celebrating our 25th anniversary in 2015:

"As native son Manuel Gonzales shows in this excellent and evenhanded history," Gerald Haslam writes in the Foreword to Mendota: Life and Times of an Emerging Latino Community, 1891-2012, "the Great Valley remains one of California's economic engines and one of its tragedies." Historian Lea Ybarra, author of Vietnam Veteranos: Chicanos Recall the War and other works, notes "the extensive interviews of Latinos in the book. ... Kudos to Dr. Gonzales for giving them a voice, and weaving their stories into the fabric of America." Jim Story, another native son now a member of the Columbia University history faculty, says, "Mendota not only plumbs the depths of many individual lives—those who flourished and those who didn't—but sets them in the context of the surrounding agricultural community. ... I am grateful to Professor Gonzales for his meticulous research, cogent analysis and storytelling skills."

ISBN: 978-09838628-5-7, 7x10, 360 pp., dozens of period photos, full index, $24.
 

There's a Freedom Here: My 100 years in Alaska, by Patricia Ray Williams, whose memoir is also a lively history of the town of Seward, on Alaska's Kenai Peninsula.

Her mother first visited Resurrection Bay in 1901, two years before the town was founded; her father established his law practice there in 1906, and their daughter was brought home to Seward as an infant, in 1910. Her stories, accompanied by dozens of photos and illustrations from early newspapers, are by turns poignant and earthy, always well told.

It's a great honor for Hardscratch Press to have been chosen to shepherd this book.

References, full index, 6.5x9.25 inches, 360 pages. ISBN: 978-0-9838628-4-0. $20. Standard bookstore discounts apply, as well as a courtesy discount for libraries.

In third printing: Sideways Rain, an itinerant Alaskan doctor's memoir of 20 years of travel in the stormy Aleutian and Pribilof islands. Besides her work as a dedicated and resourceful medical practitioner, Nancy Elliott Sydnam, M.D., is a pilot and a poet, a hunter and gatherer, and an empathetic observer of human nature. In journal entries, letters and poems she writes with deep affection about the landscape, both bleak and beautiful, and the people she encountered on her hazardous routes—often with her cello or her Labrador retriever, first Tigger, then Vita, along for the ride. Included are photos and other illustrations as well as a map of the islands and an index of names. ISBN: 978-0-9838628-2-6.

To order, you may contact the author at nancysydnam@alaska.net or the publisher at jrbpels@hardscratchpress.com.  Books will be sent with an invoice for the cover price of $20 per book plus postage. Standard bookstore discounts apply, as well as a courtesy discount for libraries.

(Another feather in designer David Johnson's cap: Sideways Rain's award at the 43rd annual book show of Publishing Professionals Network [formerly Bookbuilders West].).

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We celebrated our 20th anniversary in 2010 with two new books plus three awards from the Bay Area Independent Publishers Association (BAIPA) and one from Bookbuilders West:

"Best Cultural History," for The Life Story of Henry Ramsey Jr.;
"Best Regional History," for Family After All: Alaska's Jesse Lee Home;
"Best Memoir," for Autumn Loneliness: The Letters of Kiyoshi and Kiyoko Tokutomi (all from BAIPA); plus
"Recognition of Merit," for Vasco's Livermore 1910 (Bookbuilders West). Book details below.

And as if that weren't heady enough, 2011 brought two new honors: BAIPA's "Best Local History" for Vasco's Livermore 1910, and "Best Migration Memoir" for Homesteaders in the Headlights.

Homesteaders in the Headlights: One family's journey from a Depression-era New Jersey farm to a new life in Wasilla, Alaska, by George Harbeson Jr. (ISBN: 978-0-9789979-8-4, 6x9, 312 pages, many photos, index of names, 2nd printing, $18). "Best Migration Memoir," 2011 BAIPA award.

"George Harbeson's life—cut short at age 64—is the perfect illustration of how one person can make a difference in the life of a community. Congratulations to George Jr. for writing this meaningful tribute to both his parents." —From the Introduction by noted Alaskan Katie Hurley.

Vasco's Livermore, 1910: Portraits from the Hub Saloon, by Anne Marshall Homan and Richard W. Finn, is a collection of 100-year-old portraits by Australian caricaturist Vasco Loureiro, with stories about each of the early Livermore residents pictured (ISBN: 978-9789979-7-7, $24). "Spotlights on community members ranging from an oil man to the ice man," says Linda L. Ivey, asst. professor of history at Cal State East Bay. And Sam Viviano, art director of MAD Magazine, writes, "Loureiro manages to make each figure individual and unique, which is no small feat." Winner of Bookbuilders West 2010 "Recognition of Merit" award; named BAIPA's 2011 "Best Local History."

All of Anne Marshall Homan's books, including the two earlier volumes detailed below, can be ordered direct from the author at 925/443-9440 or annemarshall_2000@yahoo.com.

THE 2010 BAIPA AWARD-WINNERS ...