And so it began...

Two Bethel Ravens

People around the world revere and admire ravens.  I am no different.  I grew up with ravens, immersed in a culture that reveres and respects the bird --- so much so the Yupiit's very story of creation attributes our own human existence and all we need to survive here on earth to this magnificent creature.  In many ways, I suspect they were right. 
Take my own existence as a writer for example.  I've been writing and loving writing for as long as I can recollect, yet things didn't really start to fall in to place for me as a working writer until I experienced something that I'll never forget.  An image, really, that I've never shaken from my psyche, and an encounter that started a cascade of events that have brought me to this point.  The event?  One afternoon while walking on the snow-crusted tundra with the incredible woman who would become my wife I stumbled upon something stark black and rumpled in the snow.  I  approached and realized the pile of black was a dead raven.
I didn't know what to do. The whole situation was odd. I'd never seen a dead raven, and I didn't know if there was some cultural protocol or old Yup'ik rule about what one should do when encountering a dead raven.  To be honest, I was a bit scared. 
I headed home, leaving the raven there, where it fell --- out on the wide expanse of tundra near my home in Bethel, Alaska.
When I got home I wrote a poem or two, nothing impressive, as I tried to shake the image from my mind.  I didn't want to believe that witnessing the dead raven was bad luck, instead I thought it might be something important. Perhaps some sort of sign.
That night I browsed the web, thinking about the raven and my new poems and checking out various writing sites I frequented, probably trying not to think about the piles of high school essays I needed to grade ---- and I spotted a strange advertisement.  The ad had a photo of one of my favorite authors, Daniel Quinn, the author of Ishmael, a novel that I taught to my high school English students.  The advertisement offered Quinn's service as a "Writing Coach."  I was sure it was some sort of scam, using Quinn's name without his knowledge, but I wrote him anyway.  I told him who I was, what I wanted to do with my writing and that I probably couldn't afford his services on my meager second year teacher's salary, but I wanted to know what he charged nonetheless.
The next morning, the day after my encounter with the raven, right there in my in-box, sat an email from Daniel Quinn himself.  I was to send him some of my writing, and, if he approved, he would become my coach.
And so the journey to publish The Raven's Gift began.  It would start with a simple promise (one that I will write about in later posts), and continues to this day.  This blog will take you along as I recall the journey and share some of what I've learned about writing and life, as well as what I continue to learn each day. 
Ironically, I might add, this blog post itself wouldn't have existed without that same raven --- I visit that image in my mind once again and am only reminded of something I still need to learn, just in case I stumble upon another dead raven someday.