Contemporary Authors

• The Hide of My Tongue: Ax L'óot' Doogú - 2012 Plain View Press , Austin, TX
• The Dead Go to Seattle - 2017 Boreal Books , Fairbanks, AK

• Amazon -

  Vivian Faith Prescott is a fifth generation Alaskan and was born and raised in Wrangell, Alaska and lives in Sitka and Kodiak, Alaska. She is of Sáami, Suomalainen, and Irish descent (among others) and her children are Tlingit of the T’akdéintaan clan/Snail House. She is adopted into that clan and her Tlingit name is Yéilk' Tlaa, Mother-of-Cute-Little-Raven.

  She has a Ph.D. in Cross Cultural Studies and an MFA from the University of Alaska, Anchorage. Vivian is Co-Director of Raven’s Blanket, a non-profit designed to perpetuate the cultural wellness and traditions of Indigenous peoples and promote artistic works by Alaskans. Vivian also co-facilitates writers' groups for teenagers and adults.

  Vivian is a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee and a recipient of the Jason Wenger Award for Literary Excellence. She was a finalist for the 2008 and 2009 Joy Harjo Award from Cutthroat: a Journal of the Arts and was awarded Honorable Mention in Boulevard's Poetry Contest for Emerging Writers (2009). She also received honorable mention in the Harold McCracken poetry contest and was a finalist in the Winning Writers War Poetry contest. In addition to her poetry awards, Vivian received the Cortland Auser award from the American Association of Ethnic Studies.

• Juneau Empire - http://juneauempire.com/art/2016-04-13/works-wrangell-artist-vivian-faith-prescott

  Posted April 13, 2016 12:00 am - Updated June 30, 2016 01:03 pm CAPITAL CITY WEEKLY

  In the Works with Wrangell artist Vivian Faith Prescott
  Found art sculptor combs Southeast's beaches for treasure

  Vivian Faith Prescott beachcombs for treasure to use in her art. Photo by Nikka Mork.

  "Fairy Carrie," by Wrangell artist Vivian Faith Prescott.

  "Painting the Landscape," by Vivian Faith Prescott.

  "The Space I Want to Enter" is a found art piece inspired by the poetry of Sitka author John Straley.

  Some of the seapottery Vivian Faith Prescott gleaned from the beaches of Southeast Alaska waits to be used in her art.
  CCW: Do you have any particular creative routines or habits — favorite spaces to work, times of day, materials you use, music you listen to, etc.?

  VFP: I used to have a studio in Sitka, but I recently sold my home and moved permanently to Wrangell to Mickey’s Fishcamp. Since my fishcamp is small, my studio is outside on my front porch overlooking the ocean, surrounded by nature. My studio’s name is Raven’s Beach. It’s a real place and space but also virtual Facebook page. My father built a cleaning table, near our fish cleaning table, and my husband is making a space on the covered deck so that I can sculpt there. All my supplies are currently stored in a container van along with our fishcamp’s tools and taking up space in our carport near our smokehouse. Eventually I’ll have a studio space inside but for now I’m outdoors.
  I create art from antique and vintage pottery shards, glass, seaplanks and seametals that I scavenge from Wrangell’s old garbage dump beach. Sometimes my sculptures are loosely planned, or sketched out, and other times I go to my work table with a “blank slate,” which is usually a seaplank I’ve salvaged from a boat graveyard.
  CCW: How much found art (or other art) do you usually get done in a one-day period?
  VFP: It takes me a day or two to clean and scrub the pottery and glass. I use only sand and water and, occasionally, eco-friendly dishwashing soap. I like to leave the natural tannin on the pieces. During the course of a sculpting day it’ll appear that I’m digging for treasures in my supply totes. The broken glass and pottery are organized by size and some by colors. My favorite boxes are called “shapes and colors.”
  Sculpting the found objects is like putting together a puzzle and there is so much beauty in the broken pieces that it can make one giddy. When I’m going through my seaglass and pottery it feels like I’m searching through treasures. I’ve invited fellow artists and writers to look through my materials and so I know it’s not just me who’s fascinated by our broken discarded past. There’s also mystery in it. What was this thing?
  Because I have to find the right pieces, completing a sculpture can take days to weeks, even a month or more. The John Straley poetry piece took a couple of months to sculpt.
  I’m a writer too so I find that balancing my time between writing and sculpting is beneficial. Beachcombing and sculpting gives me the break I need from my lengthy writing sessions. I write early morning until early afternoon, sometimes spending 3-7 hours composing or editing. With the mixed media sculptures I can spend the same amount of time, but typically I devote a couple days a week to the sculptures and the rest of the time I’m writing.
  CCW: How do you balance your creative life with your day job?
  VFP: I’m a full-time artist, but I also live at Mickey’s Fishcamp. My father lives with my husband and me. We depend upon nature for our food so the writing and art must wait if the blueberries are ripe or the hooligan are running up the Stikine. But living a subsistence life also means I incorporate that life into my art. I take a notebook with me out harvesting food and I find myself jotting down ideas or discussing ideas with whomever I’m with. I’m always the artist/writer. I can’t separate my art from picking berries or jigging for halibut.
  CCW: What do you find particularly inspiring?
  VFP: I find other artists inspiring and I’m also inspired by the landscapes, cultures, and communities in Alaska. I also like irony, especially historical irony, as well as juxtapositions and multi-layering concepts. Sculptor Vanessa German inspires me. Her work is breathtaking and so unique. I love unique. I work with discarded glass, pottery, and metals so I’m inspired by Preston Singletary, Dale Chihuly and early mosaic masters too; plus Alaskans Amy Meissner, Jaqueline Madsen, and Susie Silook’s work causes me to think outside the box.
  And, of course, the beach inspires me. Beachcombing is an important part of my writing and art process. I often get my ideas while picking up a specific glass shard from the beach. Each piece has a story to tell. I’m a storyteller. My modes of storytelling are writing and sculpting mixed-media pieces.
  CCW: What are you working on now, and when do you hope to finish it?
  VFP: In Northern Sami dialect, gávdnat means to unearth; to find; to uncover, to locate. I’m thinking about my multicultural heritage and trying to incorporate that into my work. Simultaneously, I’m exploring the concept of Muitalus, a Sami term for “story.” I’m using the Sami method of telling several stories as once. Also, I want to do more garbage fairies, and more faces. I’ve sculpted a representation of master carver Tommy Joseph and my daughter Vivian Mork and also poet John Straley. It could take me a year or more to finish a series of these pieces. My dad and I harvested quills from a road-killed porcupine so I’m currently designing and creating a face that incorporates those quills.
  CCW: What advice have you heard (either directly, from someone you know, or indirectly, from reading or otherwise learning about another artist) that’s been beneficial to you? Separately, do you have any advice for other artists?
  VFP: Find like-minded people. This is advice I heard when I was younger and advice I offer now. Like-minded people don’t have to be artists, but I do think that talking art with other artists or writers is important, if not necessary. Kristian Cranston and Tommy Joseph at Raindance Gallery in Sitka have encouraged my mixed-media art early on. Kristina helps me to think outside the box, too. Eugene Solovyov of Sitka Rose Gallery also encourages me, plus he sells my art in his gallery. My sister, and fellow beachcomber, Joy Prescott, is also my like-minded friend. My advice is to find these encouragers and people you can talk art with. If you’re shy or you can’t get away from your home or job then try a Facebook group. There are lots of welcoming spaces for artists and writers on Facebook.
  With my writing it’s the same thing, so find a group of writers. Ask other artists and writers what’s going on in your community. And if there are no writers or artists groups in your neighborhood then create a group. I founded Blue Canoe Writers in Sitka and Flying Island Writers and Artists in Wrangell. And if there isn’t a place to show your art, or read your work, then create a space. Get your work out there into the world.

• Poets & Writers - https://www.pw.org/content/vivian_prescott

  Vivian Faith Prescott

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  111 A Polaris Ave
  Kodiak, AK 99615

  E-mail:
  doctorviv@hotmail.com
  Website:
  vivianfaithprescott.com
  Author's Bio
  Vivian Faith Prescott was born and raised in Wrangell, Alaska. She is an Alaska resident and currently lives in Kodiak, Alaska with her U.S. Coast Guard/poet husband, Howie Martindale. Vivian is a poet and scholar of Sáami, Suomalainen, Irish, and German descent. Vivian is adopted into the T'akdeintaan clan. Her children are Raven, T’akdeintaan/Snail House. She has a Ph.D. in Cross Cultural Studies and an MFA from the University of Alaska Anchorage. She and her family are involved in the Lingít language revitalization in Southeast Alaska. Vivian and her daughter, Vivian Mork, have established a non-profit called Raven’s Blanket. Raven’s Blanket is designed to enhance and perpetuate the cultural wellness and traditions of Indigenous peoples through education, media, and the arts; and to promote the artistic works throughout Alaska by both Native and non-native Alaskans. My Blog:Planet Alaska http://planetalaska.blogspot.com/
  Publications and Prizes
  Journals:
  Avocet: A Journal of Nature Poems, Connotations, Copperfield Review, Cutthroat: A Journal of the Arts, Explorations, Ice Box, Kingfisher, Off the Coast, Permafrost, Tidal Echoes, Turtle Quarterly
  Prizes Won:
  Vivian was recently awarded the Jason Wenger Award for Literary Excellence. She was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in Poetry for my poem "Fish On" published in Turtle Quarterly; Boulevard Magazine Emerging Poet Award, Honorable Mention; Alaska 49 Writers Ode to A Dead Salmon Contest: First Prize, "Ode to Stinkin"; Joy Harjo Poetry Award 2009 Finalist: "Paths of Most Resistance."; Joy Harjo Poetry Award 2008 Finalist :"I Was in Love with a Boy Who Loved Dog Sledding"; Harold McCracken Endowment Poetry Award (2009): Honorable Mention, "The Last Word."; National Association of Ethnic Studies, Cortland Auser Undergraduate Paper Award: "Moving Mountains in the Intercultural Classroom."
  Personal Favorites
  What I'm Reading Now:
  War Dances by Sherman Alexie, Ejo by Derick Burleson, The Dome by Stephen King, The Yiddish Policeman's Union by Michael Chabon, Flying Out with the Wounded by Anne Caston
  Reviews, Recordings, and Interviews
  Perspectives from a Lingít Language Instructor (Sharing Our Pathways)
  "Transients" poetry video by Vivian Faith Prescott (White Knuckle Press)
  "Living by a Tank Farm Cradle Song" poetry video (White Knuckle Press)
  "Response Teams" poetry video by Vivian Faith Prescott (White Knuckle Press)
  "Know My Skin" poetry video (Earth Speak Magazine)
  More Information
  Listed as:
  Poet
  Gives readings:
  Yes
  Travels for readings:
  Yes
  Identifies as:
  Mixed Race
  Prefers to work with:
  Adults, Teenagers
  Fluent in:
  English
  Born in:
  Wrangell
  Raised in:
  Wrangell, AK
  Please note: All information in the Directory is provided by the listed writers or their representatives.
  Last updated: Jul 15, 2011

• Vivian Faith Prescott Website - http://www.vivianfaithprescott.com

  Vivian Faith Prescott is a 5th generation Alaskan born and raised in Wrangell, Alaska. She lives in Wrangell, Alaska at her family's fish camp. Vivian is married with four children and many grandchildren. She is of Sámi and Suomalainen, and Irish descent (among others). Her children are Raven of the T’akdeintaan clan/Snail House. She is adopted into the T'akdeintaan clan. Her Tlingit name is "Mother of Cute Little Raven."

  AWARDS AND PUBLICATIONS
  Best of the Net nomination from Gemini Magazine, 2012
  Best of the Net nomination from Untitled Country Review, 2011.
  Jason Wenger Excellence in Writing Award, University of Alaska, Anchorage (2011).
  My poetry appears in Kingfisher, Drunken Boat, Explorations 2000, Explorations 2001, Avoset: A Journal of Nature Poems, Tidal Echoes, Ice Box, Permafrost, Cutthroat and Cirque.
  Nominated for a Pushcart Prize in Poetry (2011).
  Finalist for the 2008 Joy Harjo Poetry Award at Cutthroat: A Journal of the Arts, for my poem, “I Was in Love with a Boy Who Loved Dog-Sledding.”
  Finalist for the 2009 Joy Harjo Poetry Award for "Paths of most resistance."
  Boulevard's Poetry Contest for Emerging Writers: Honorable Mention (2010).
  Honorable mention for a single poem in the 2009 Harold McCracken Poetry Award.

• Association of Writers & Writing Programs Website - https://www.awpwriter.org/community_calendar/spotlight_view/vivian_faith_prescott

  In the Spotlight

  Vivian Faith Prescott
  Facilitator and Mentor at Blue Canoe Writers, Matki Writers, and Flying Island Writers; Publisher/Editor at Petroglyph Press
  Wrangell, Alaska Member Since: 2013
  About: Vivian Faith Prescott is a fifth-generation Alaskan who lives at her family’s fish camp on the small island of Wrangell in Southeast Alaska. She holds an MFA from the University of Alaska, and is the founder of several writers’ groups: Blue Canoe Writers (Sitka); Matki Writers (Facebook); and Flying Island Writers & Artist (Wrangell). She is the author of a full-length poetry collection, The Hide of My Tongue, and two chapbooks, Slick and Sludge.
  Photo credit: Howie Martindale
  Find Vivian in the Directory of Members

  Who encouraged you to be a writer?
  I've been writing since I was eleven years old. After experiencing grief, and being very conscious of grief, my instinct was to write my first poem. It was my friends who encouraged me, who knew me as a "poet," even at a young middle-school age. My high school English teacher recognized my young passion and created a special poetry class for me. On the small Alaskan island where I was born and raised I was known for being a poet. But after that, in what should've been productive young writerly years, I was busy raising children and surviving, having been married at fifteen years old. I hid my poems from my then-husband but shared them with a young couple I was friends with.
  If you could meet any writer, who would it be? What would you say to him or her?
  If I could meet any writer, I'd meet Sherman Alexie. I'd probably try to say something clever, but I'd probably just embarrass myself. Both my daughters have met Mr. Alexie at two different events for Native writers. I'd probably just ask him to tell me a story and then I'd tell him one and then we'd just sit around telling stories. Talking story is the best way to connect.
  When do you find time to write?
  I write in the early morning, and I usually stop by noonish to take a break. The afternoon is typically time for sending out my work. But all that changes in the summer when I'm fishing and harvesting and berry picking because that's how we survive, how we eat. I live at a fish camp on a small island in Alaska, so we get most of our family's food from the land and sea. I have to bring a notebook with me when I'm out fishing or berry picking in case the muse visits.
  Describe your writing process.
  I try to write every day. First, I begin the day by reading a literary journal or a few poems in a poetry collection. I write longhand with blue ink in small notebooks. But I've adapted to technology and sometimes I use the note app on my iPhone. I actually don't like noise, except nature's noise, so music is distracting unless for some reason I need a specific type of music to enlist the muse. Living on the oceanfront, with the sea only a few steps from my home, I live with the tidal fluxes; I think I write differently at high tide than at low tide.
  Do you feel influenced by your peers to produce a certain type of work?
  I am influenced by my peers. I often see the structure or theme of a poem or story and say to myself, "Hey, look what they've done with that." Sometimes it's a form I've already done but wasn't brave enough to send out, and sometimes it's a new discovery. For example, Peggy Shumaker's small memoir vignettes in Just Breathe Normally. I had written vignettes but didn't know what to do with them or didn't realize that I was doing anything interesting. But I follow my own interests, mostly. I create poetry videos, poetry collages, and I'm experimenting with comic-strip type poem collages.
  What do your books look like once you’ve finished reading them?
  My books have dog-eared pages, blue ink in the margins, even salmon blood and scales on them, and occasionally, a squashed mosquito. I write in blue ink on my fiction reads. My books of poetry have a sacred sense, so I don't write in them, but I can't help the dog-eared pages.
  Which book should be required reading for young people?
  Poetry by Indigenous peoples around the world and anything by Sherman Alexie.
  What is your favorite thing to do when you should be writing, but just can’t find the motivation?
  My favorite thing to do when not writing is to make art. I go out to my outdoor shed and sculpt with old pottery shards, glass, sea planks, and parts from old fishing boats; basically, antique garbage. I find these treasures on the beach at a local de-commissioned garbage dump at the north end of our island. As I construct something physically, I'm often building a story or a poem in my mind. Also, when I'm not writing, I'm usually catching fish, picking berries, or harvesting beach greens, or whatever is ripening in the forest. My life is about food and words. And garbage.
  Would you like to share a project you are currently working on?
  I'm documenting climate change through poetry and prose. Obviously, living in Alaska, we see it all around us. The island I live on is located in the Alexander Archipelago in Tlingit country, at the mouth of the fastest flowing navigable river in the US, the Stikine River. Shakes Glacier and LeConte Glacier and all the island landscapes surrounding us are a part of me. My food security, my family's wellbeing, my family's heritage, everything is affected by changes in climate. I'm a fifth-generation Alaskan, having married into the Tlingit nation. I live with and take care of my father, an elder with a tremendous amount of traditional knowledge about fishing and hunting. I've been documenting his knowledge and writing poetry and prose about those connections. I'm also working on a collection of poems that deals with Sami-American heritage and identity and what that means in the context of our disapora.
  Who do you follow online?
  I mostly follow Facebook blogs and writers on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. My favorite is Athabaskan Woman, though I follow my friend Ishmael Hope on Alaska Native Storyteller. I'm also a member of Baiki and other Sami groups on Facebook. I keep in touch with many indigenous writers through the Indigenous-Aboriginal American Writers Caucus, and my Facebook acquaintances. Through these connections I've discovered some great writers and literary journals.
  What would be your advice to new AWP members on how to make the most of their membership?
  New members should connect with one another on Facebook. Find one or two caucuses that have your common interests and passions and join them. You can find job and publishing opportunities, writerly support and encouragement.
  What is your favorite line from a book?
  "We are all given one thing by which our lives are measured...Mine are the stories which can change or not change the world. It doesn't matter as long as I continue to tell the stories." —Thomas Builds-the-Fire/Sherman Alexie

Prescott, Vivian Faith: THE DEAD GO TO SEATTLE

Kirkus Reviews. (Aug. 1, 2017):
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Prescott, Vivian Faith THE DEAD GO TO SEATTLE Red Hen Press (Adult Fiction) $15.95 9, 26 ISBN: 978-1-59709-904-2
In Prescott's debut collection, a young Native American woman confronts colonialism, homophobia, and a history of erasure by reclaiming the stories of her people.Tossed out of her father's house on Wrangell Island in Alaska, Tova Agard strikes out on her own. When she meets a man collecting Native stories for the Smithsonian on the ferry to Seattle, it's unclear whether he's been sailing through the Gulf of Alaska for generations or only a few days. "Sometimes our stories take more than our lifetime to tell, you know," Tova reveals, kicking off a cycle of tales about the Agards that stretches--and possibly disrupts--time itself. Ranging from myth to small-town gossip to family trauma, these 42 stories are loosely arranged to create generational echoes, though it's sometimes difficult to trace the many threads Prescott weaves. There's Tova's mother, Mina, still contending with abandonment and the consequences of teen pregnancy, while her father, Karl, struggles with masculinity, Tova's queerness, and the viciousness of his own upbringing. Helene, Tova's grandmother, runs off to join a 1970s alien cult, while Mina's sisters remain to circle her in support. Amid the family saga, myth and collective memory intrude. Women transform into bears, explorer John Muir makes an appearance, Raven the trickster god causes trouble, and Tova may be the key to preventing colonialism from destroying her language and her people. An uneven but ambitious collection that boldly explores the intersection of magic, queerness, and indigenous history.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Prescott, Vivian Faith: THE DEAD GO TO SEATTLE." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Aug. 2017. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A499572713/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=9e3348c1. Accessed 17 May 2018.

Gale Document Number: GALE|A499572713

• Foreword Reviews
  https://www.forewordreviews.com/reviews/the-dead-go-to-seattle/
  Word count: 412

  The Dead Go to Seattle
  Vivian Faith Prescott
  Boreal Books (Sep 26, 2017)
  Softcover $16.95 (288pp)
  978-1-59709-904-2
  Cleverly framed, these stories capture a rich island community that is steeped in oral traditions.
  In Alaska’s southeastern archipelago, the small Wrangell Island is home to a mix of peoples and stories. Local author Vivian Faith Prescott draws inspiration from a variety of sources for her compelling collection The Dead Go to Seattle.
  The book is a novel about an island community, told through more than forty stories. The pieces skip around in time, characters reemerge or fade away, myth intersects with life, and the effects of worldwide climate change threaten everyone on the island.
  To tie together these stories—many previously published in literary journals—Prescott uses the clever framing device of John Swanton, a Smithsonian Institution ethnologist visiting Wrangell to collect locals’ stories, along with his Tlingit aide, Tooch Waterson. Each story is noted with the date on which the recording is being made, letting Prescott smoothly jump backward and forward in time, and serving as a reminder that these characters are all telling their stories to an audience.
  Those stories include elements from oral traditions, like the shape-shifting otter people of Tlingit lore, who prey on children, or others who turn into killer whales but seem to retain some of their human tendencies. Others focus on the challenges faced by realistic characters, like Tova, a pink-haired young woman who returns home only to be disowned by her father because she has come out as a lesbian.
  Tova is probably the book’s most developed character, whether she’s cautiously sharing folktales with the researchers, bonding with her mother, or navigating the island’s reaction to her Sami heritage.
  Tova’s father appears in other stories, including some before her birth. Other characters who play major roles in one story set decades ago have their fates revealed in more recently set pieces. Even Swanton and Waterson become active characters in certain stories, as when Tova and some of her friends prank the ethnologist with a tongue-in-cheek initiation ceremony, or when Swanton has to find his way to safety and attempt to rescue his research when severe flooding hits the island.
  This structure works very well, and it makes The Dead Go to Seattle a collection that rewards rereading and rumination.
  Reviewed by Jeff Fleischer
  September/October 2017