Ruth Underhill
Tongass Mist Writing Founder, Owner &
Writing Event and Resource Organizer
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Ruth Underhill created Tongass Mist Writing in 2019, a creative writing resource for community and craft development in Southeast Alaska. Tongass Mist Writing offers retreats, workshops and creative writing resources such as coaching, editing, event planning and community action for the arts. Tongass Mist Writing offers these services with deep gratitude for the privilege of living in and sharing the unceded ancestral lands since time immemorial of Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian people. She is always learning more about this place and its people through the generosity of the land and friends in Sitka, Juneau, and other Southeast Alaskan communities.
Ruth holds a Masters of Fine Arts in Writing with a focus on Creative Nonfiction from the Vermont College of Fine Arts. She teaches creative writing for the University of Alaska Southeast and has read on KCAW public radio for Sitka Tells Tales and the Library Hour show.
You can find an essay about the intersections of nature and shift work by Ruth on Past Ten , an on-line literary journal. Ruth has organized creative music and writing events for healthcare professionals at two Alaska medical centers. Most recently, Ruth spoke about the challenges of living in natural rhythm as it relates to healthcare for the "I'd Love To But I'm So Tired" podcast. She was the Tenakee Springs Writer-in-Residence Summer 2023.
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Ruth loves to travel and has lived in 9 states, and four continents. She spent 20 years in the nursing profession and has called Alaska her home since 2016. When she sits down to write, Ruth writes about the intersections of nature and everyday lived experiences in healthcare, war, family and cultural blending through poetry, lyrical essays and memoir.
E-mail tongassmistwritingretreat@gmail.com for more information
Sue William Silverman
Featured Guest Writer 1/20/24 10am Online
Sue William Silverman is an award-winning author of eight works of nonfiction and poetry. Her new book, forthcoming Jan. ’24, is Acetylene Torch Songs: Writing True Stories to Ignite the Soul. Her previous book, How to Survive Death and Other Inconveniences, won the gold star in Foreword Reviews Indie Book of the Year Award and the Clara Johnson Award for Women’s Literature. Other books include Love Sick: One Woman’s Journey through Sexual Addiction, made into a Lifetime TV movie; Because I Remember Terror, Father, I Remember You, which won the AWP Award; and The Pat Boone Fan Club: My Life as a White Anglo-Saxon Jew. She teaches at the low-residency MFA in Writing Program at Vermont College of Fine Arts. www.SueWilliamSilverman.com
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Rita Banerjee
Rita Banerjee was our April 2023 Tongass Mist Writing Retreat visiting writer. Banerjee is a multi-genre author and editor of CREDO: An Anthology of Manifestos and Sourcebook for Creative Writing. She is the author of the poetry collection Echo in Four Beats, which was named one of Book Riot’s “Must-Read Poetic Voices of Split This Rock 2018”, the novella “A Night with Kali” in Approaching Footsteps, and the poetry chapbook Cracklers at Night. She received her doctorate in Comparative Literature from Harvard University and her MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Washington, and has taught at Harvard, UC Berkeley, University of Munich, Vermont College of Fine Arts, and LIU Brooklyn. Her work appears in PANK, Poets & Writers, Tupelo Quarterly, Nat. Brut., Isele Magazine, Academy of American Poets, South Asian Avant-Garde, Kweli Journal, Electric Literature, VIDA, Los Angeles Review of Books, Vermont Public Radio, and elsewhere. She is an Editor-at-Large of the South Asian Avant-Garde, Executive Creative Director of the Cambridge Writers’ Workshop, and co-writer and co-director of Burning Down the Louvre (2023), a documentary film about race, intimacy, and tribalism in the United States and in France. She received a 2021-2022 Creation Grant from the Vermont Arts Council for her new memoir and manifesto on female cool, and one of the opening chapters of this new memoir, “Birth of Cool” was a Notable Essay in the 2020 Best American Essays. Her writing is represented by literary agent Jamie Chambliss of Folio Literary Management, and you can follow her work at ritabanerjee.com or @Rita_Banerjee.
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Rita's visit to Sitka included a reading at the Sitka Public Library, four days of retreat classes and and and events open to Sitka's public!
Tongass Mist Writing's four day retreat in April 2023 featured wilderness excursions, generative writing salons, readings by a fire, literary craft talks and the incomparable experience of creating, enjoying a welcoming art community in the heart of the Tongass National Forest. Rita comes to visited with incredible experience writing, film making, teaching, publishing and directing writing programs across the country.
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Sitka Fine Arts Camp
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Tongass Mist Writing has held retreats at Sitka Fine Arts Camp in 2019 and 2023, three retreats in all. The facilities are beautiful. Writers who attend our retreat here will feel removed from their daily rush and set in the majestic proximity of mountains, ocean and rainforest. This campus is a rich experience of both wilderness and art. Writers will find their lodgings comfortable. Meals are served under the same roof as lodging with the option to take occasional meals independent of the retreat schedule at any number of cafes. Writing sessions will be held on campus with visiting writer Rita Banerjee. A separate writing room is provided for writers who wish to step back from the retreat schedule and spend extended time in writing throughout the retreat. There will be three evening readings. Daily excursions include a private wildlife viewing marine cruise and a polar plunge/sauna session. We hope to see you soon in the incomparable beauty of the Tongass. Join Us.
Visiting Writers, Locations and Leadership
Meet Our Tongass Mist Writing Visiting Writers, Founder and CEO Ruth Underhill
Learn More About Tongass Mist Writing Event Locations