McRoy & Blackburn, Publishers

Books from the north:
well-written fiction by Alaska authors, published by an Alaska press.

We are an Alaska publishing company, headquartered in the historic gold-mining town of Ester, Alaska. Our titles reflect the creativity, enthusiasm, and sheer stubborness of Alaskans and their way of life. Please see "About Us" for further details, contact information, and submittal details.


Canadian readers!


Our books are now available at the best bookstore in the Yukon, Mac's Fireweed Books. Stop in and visit their great selection of northern literature in Whitehorse and Dawson City, or visit them online at www.macsbooks.ca.

Poetry Reading!


Ann Chandonnet will be one of two featured poets reading on Tuesday, August 12, at Taste Full Beans Coffeehouse in Hickory, North Carolina. The reading begins at 7 p.m. For more information, see www.poetryhickory.com.

Porter returns to Alaska!


Don Porter will have a booth at both the Tanana Valley Fair, early August in Fairbanks (rain or shine!), and the state fair in Palmer later in the month. Stop by at the fairs and buy a book from Don or have him sign one you've bought elsewhere.

Great News!


Sarah Birdsall has been awarded a bronze medal in the 2007 Independent Publishers annual competition (IPPY) for her novel, The Red Mitten. For the full announcement, click here.

Now Available


Yukon Murders

Another bush pilot thriller from Don Porter now available!
Yukon Murders
By Don G. Porter
Adult
$14.95, paper
ISBN-13 978-0-9706712-9-5
ISBN-10 0-9706712-9-6



The place: the flat and frosty empty country of the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta in western Alaska. The time: not very long ago. The hero: don't call him that. He'd hate it if you called him that. All in all, bush pilot Alex Price would rather be flying, just flying. True, he had added a private investigator's license to his commercial pilot's ticket. The state troopers can always use someone they can call "Detective" in court, and serving as an extra set of eyes and ears--or an extra gun hand--for the police made a nice change from shuttling the mail and supplies to the mines and villages throughout Bushmaster Air's territory. But that was before someone began killing a few leading citizens in the tiny villages of the delta--and the clues at the murder scenes all pointed straight to Alex's best friend. Now it's up to the bush pilot to play detective for real, before things get even worse . . .




More New Titles


Red Mitten

The Red Mitten
By Sarah Birdsall

Adult
$15.50, paper (vi + 202 pp.)
ISBN 0-9706712-7-x



$25.95, cloth
ISBN 0-9706712-6-1



Memories have a way of coming back, drowning the present with the ghosts of the past. Out of Alaska's little-known lake country comes this darkly elegant tale that is part romance, part mystery, even part ghost story: the red mitten leaves its unique mark on many people. Chief among them is Katie Gibson, a dream-haunted young woman scarred within and without by the events that led to her self-exile from her childhood home in western Alaska. Returning now as an adult to the harshly beautiful shores of Lake Ilmenof, she must confront the memories-and the reality-of the two brothers who were her friends and lovers, the father who seemed to turn away from her and her mother just when he was most needed, the friends who peopled her life at the lake, and the tragedy that brought that life to a halt. It is only by uncovering the truths underlying that tragedy that Katie can once again begin to live fully, and to move toward love.

What reviewers have to say about The Red Mitten:

"Birdsall's novel is a mystery on many levels, an unsettling love story that hooks into America's wounding complexity, its meeting of Indian with non-Indian, modern life with remnants of traditional village life. Beautifully done in terms of 'spirit of place' and characters of that place-a haunting loon call of a novel that one still hears long after the reading of it."

-Susan Deer Cloud, award-winning author of In the Moon When the Deer Lose Their Horns.

The Red Mitten has been awarded a bronze medal in the 2007 Independent Publishers annual competition (IPPY).


Accessories

Accessories are Everything in the Wild
By Nita Nettleton

Adult
$13.50, paper
ISBN 0-9706712-8-8



This sequel to The Wake-Up Call of the Wild has our heroine on an overland trek: A walk in the woods, Jane thinks, a simple hike up and back on the Chilkoot Trail with her niece Caly--that will make a great summer respite from the day-to-day challenges of keeping house (or rather, keeping cabin) in the Talkeetna Mountains...but of course nothing ever goes quite as planned in the life of Jane Doe, a.k.a. B. Wood, ace author of children's books, a life that is still opening like a flower-maybe a jaunty spring Southeastern skunk cabbage. Once again Jane proceeds under peculiar pressures, this time with a real dead guy (on ice) included. At least she has enough chocolate along for emergencies...