Alaska Book Week

Authors, libraries, booksellers, publishers, and schools join together each October for Alaska Book Week, a statewide celebration of Alaska’s authors and books. Among the activities taking place are book displays, author panels, book club events, and a book fair. Communities across Alaska are encouraged to create their own events. More…

Alaska Native Heritage Month Event

Each November marks the celebration of Alaska Native/American Indian Heritage Month. Alaska Center for the Book highlights the work of Alaska Native authors in a number of different ways including readings, dscussions and other activities.

Held in partnership with the Alaska Native/American Indian Heritage Month committee.

Alaska Reads

The Alaska Center for the Book has coordinated Alaska Reads since 2016. Even though Alaska is a huge place, it’s possible for Alaskans to form a rich web of connections. One way we pull together is through a shared reading experience. To that end, Alaska Reads–a biannual event–features a work centered on some aspect of Alaska life and culture written by a living Alaskan author.
 
The Alaska Center for the Book has partnered with the Alaska State Library, the Alaska Humanities Forum, and the Rasmuson Foundation to provide books and author visits to communities around the State. The Alaska State Library has generously funded our purchase of books to be distributed to libraries around Alaska.
 
Past Alaska Reads Selections:
2016     Blonde Indian, by Ernestine Hayes
2018     Steam Laundry, by Nicole Stallion O’Donnell
2020     Find the Good, by Heather Lende
2022     Surviving Bear Island, by Paul Greci
 
 

CLIA Awards

Each year the Alaska Center for the Book presents Contributions to Literacy in Alaska (CLIA) Awards to persons and institutions that have made a significant contribution in the battle for literacy, to the literary arts, or to the preservation of the written or spoken word in Alaska. Award winners have included teachers, librarians, writers, tutors, organizations and others dedicated to making the world a better place through the gift of language. More…

Creative Writing Contest

Since 1981, the University of Alaska Anchorage and the Anchorage Daily News along with the Alaska Center for the Book, have sponsored an annual creative writing contest that has drawn participants of every age in every part of Alaska. A selection of winners has been published each summer in the Anchorage Daily News. More…

Letters About Literature

This program has been discontinued by the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress. Formerly, in partnership with the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress, this national writing project invited students in grades 4-12 to write a letter to an author—living or dead—describing how that author’s work changed their way of thinking about the world. More…

National Book Festival

This annual Library of Congress festival in Washington, D.C., which attracts up to 200,000 participants, celebrates the joys of reading and lifelong literacy. Alaska Center for the Book volunteers represent Alaska’s literary heritage at the Pavilion of States each year. During the pandemic the festival has been held virtually. Many of the events, including author discussions, videos and podcasts are still available at the Book Festival website here…

Poems in Place

Poems in Place is a project with the goal of placing poems, written by Alaskan writers, in each of the seven regions of the Alaska State Park’s system in the coming years. What might happen when the old knowing that lives inside poetry marries the voices of wind, river, forest, the pull of the tide, or the quiet rhythm of a lake and is available to all who pass by? More…

Reading Rendezvous

This outdoor reading fair at Anchorage’s Z.J. Loussac Library, celebrates the written and spoken word and is the kick-off for the Anchorage Municipal Libraries Summer Reading Program. Kids can sign up for the Summer Reading Program and the whole family can enjoy free activities and entertainment. Local groups supporting literacy and literature promote their programs with book giveaways, book-related crafts and other fun activities. Friends of Pets co-sponsors the event, providing educational activities and a diverse array of animals including hamsters, parrots, dogs and miniature horses. More…