Best-selling author, alum speaks on becoming an unlikely author

By Ty Hampton
J-School Web Reporter

photo by Tim Kupsick

UM alum Seth Kantner reads passages from his new book "Ordinary Wolves" during a lecture-slideshow in the University Theatre.

Seth Kantner, a 1991 journalism grad, told students and faculty at the UM journalism school in October that he thought the odds of him growing up to be a writer were just as likely as his becoming an astronaut.

But since his best-selling book "Ordinary Wolves" took off in 2005, maybe the moon is not as far away as it seems. Kantner made a visit to UM last month to speak to journalism students and others about his experiences as a writer and about growing up in Alaska.

He also participated in the Montana Festival of the Book, when authors are invited to read from their works.

"Ordinary Wolves" was the 2006 first-year reading experience, the book recommended for all UM freshmen.

Kantner said his novel about a boy growing up in the Alaskan wilderness is a work of fiction, but the arc of the novel follows his own life very closely. Growing up in Northern Alaska in a “sod igloo,” he said, he did not have the luxuries of electricity, running water or social interactions with many other people.

Kantner hopes those who read his book will find it to be a good story and hopes, "They get a glimpse of life close to nature because overall I think Americans live unbelievably disconnected from nature. My book shows nature close up and personal."

His book was met with favorable reviews in publications ranging from the New York Times to Outside Magazine, a feat that surprised Kantner as dyslexia had made writing and communication skills a struggle his whole life. Kantner went on to win the Whiting Award in 2005, a prestigious award – and $40,000 -- given to the top 10 emerging U.S. writers.

"I thought it was the most boring story ever compiled," Kantner said, reflecting on his book's success. "I basically had a lot of things I wanted to bitch about, and so I wrote the book."

Kantner first attended the University of Alaska in Fairbanks for two years before transferring to UM. He started out in the creative-writing department and credits John Steinbeck and Margaret Atwood for influencing his writing as his favorite authors. Kantner said quickly that he would never compare his writing to their work though adding that "they know what they're doing, I'm just faking it."

Eventually Kantner made his way over to the School of Journalism, where he said he "learned how to write a complete sentence."

"One day I got yelled at for leaning on the copying machine over there, so I walked across the Oval to the journalism school and never went back," Kantner said.

Getting the book published ended up being a 12-year process, Kantner said. He began writing the book in 1993, and then began a long re-writing process that in the end greatly strengthened the work, according to Kantner.

"The editing process was always frustrating to me, and there were many times I felt like throwing the whole thing in the garbage," Kanter said. "But that's where stubbornness and relentlessness gets you a long way because it was just like I was not turning back."

Kantner credited his Alaskan upbringing in a family that doesn't define success in money for his uncommon nature that has helped him as a writer.

"I come from a place where if they're paying to build a ditch, you get a job doing that for a few days and then move on," Kantner said.

Kantner is working on a second book, a collection of essays and photographs, but its release date is unknown. Kantner hopes his second effort doesn't take more than a decade but he's not making any promises. He describes the time aspect as another rule of the business that he has not followed in conventional terms.

"I have another novel in the works that evidently was due today, which if I remember right that gets me an 'F' in the journalism school," he said.

In addition to being an author, Kantner has worked as a commercial fisherman in Alaska since he was 9, has regularly sold wildlife photos for income and writes a monthly column for the Anchorage Daily News.

Kantner, 41, lives 100 miles north of Nome in Kotzebue, with his wife, Stacey Glaser, and his 9-year-old daughter, China. When asked if he and his family intend on making Alaska their permanent home with the success of his book, Kantner laughed and shook his head saying, "My wife is from Boston and wants to leave the Arctic as soon as possible."

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