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Dana Stabenow
I was born in Anchorage, Alaska on March 27, 1952, and
raised on a 75-foot fish tender in the Gulf of Alaska.
When I wasn’t seasick I wrote stories about NORMAL
children who lived on SHORE, and made my mother read them.
Probably some of my best work.
In 1964, the Great Alaskan Earthquake occurred during my
twelfth birthday party. It was then that I realized I was
destined for greatness, always supposing I survived the day.
I graduated from Seldovia High School in 1969 and put myself
through college working as an egg grader, bookkeeper and
expediter for Whitney-Fidalgo Seafoods in Anchorage.
I received a B.A. in journalism from the University of
Alaska in 1973 only because the dean of students called me
into her office the previous fall and, looking kindly at me
over the tops of her glasses, asked me if I planned on
graduating with the rest of my class the following spring.
This was the first time someone had suggested that perhaps I
might not. She further informed me that participation in
Lathrop Dorm’s second floor keggers did not, in fact,
count as credit. Well.
After graduation I spent one more summer knee-deep in
humpies and blew everything I earned on a four-month
backpacking trip to Europe with Rhonda Sleighter, college
roommate and one of the dedicatees of Play With Fire.
There, I discovered English pubs, German beer and Irish men.
Fortuitously, upon my impoverished return home (I think I
had something like twenty bucks and change in my pocket when
I stepped off the plane) construction began again on the
TransAlaska Pipeline, and answering whole-heartedly to the
call of the cash I worked for Alyeska Pipeline at Galbraith
Lake and later for British Petroleum at Prudhoe Bay.
I made an obscene amount of money and went to Hawaii a lot.
That was in the days when it cost $322.21 r/t
Anchorage-Honolulu-Anchorage, and a flight to any of the
outer islands was included. Sigh.
In 1982 I turned 30. Was this what I wanted to do with the
rest of my life, work on the Slope and party in Hawaii?
Well...but no. I left the Slope for the last time on August
17, 1982 (but who’s counting?) and enrolled in
UAA’s MFA program, from which I graduated in 1985. My
goal was to sell a book before I went broke and I just
barely made it: Second Star was bought by Ace Science
Fiction in 1990. It fell with an almighty thud on the
marketplace and was never heard from again. Oh dear.
In 1991 my editor sniffed out the existence of the first
Kate Shugak mystery and offered me a three-book contract.
“What makes you think I can write any more of
these?” I said. “Shut up and sign,” said she.
“Great,” I said when she called to tell me A
Cold Day for Murder had been nominated for an Edgar award,
“what’s an Edgar?” After a long pause, she
explained. “Great,” I said. “Does any
money come with it?”
It won in 1993. And the rest was madness.
Books:
 Wild Crimes, September 2004
 Better To Rest, September 2003
The Mysterious North, October 2002
Nothing Gold Can Stay, September 2001
 And the Dying is Easy, June 2001
So Sure of Death, September 2000
Fire and Ice, September 1999
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