On the importance of setting. Can’t remember who I wrote this for. The US Coast Guard invited me to do a ridealong on cutter Alex Haley in the Bering Sea in February of 2004. I was invited to write a daily blog from the ship so the shorebound families of the crew could eyewitness as…
[from the stabenow.com archives, February 10, 2008, with present-day commentary also in bold] Okaaaaay, five days after publication of Prepared for Rage, I have received the first email wanting to know when the next Kate novel will be out. Laurie King and I were talking about this yesterday. We’re pleased and flattered that you “Just…
[for the Poisoned Pen Conference at the Biltmore Hotel in Phoenix, July 13, 2012] Sometimes research is easy. When I lived in Anchorage my house was right under the traffic pattern to the seaplane base of Lake Hood. One day my father was helping me with something in my back yard and a Cessna 206…
In honor of the June 1st publication of Silk and Song in trade paperback, here’s a post from the Silk and Song blog tour in January. Between Two Continents with Dana Stabenow From James Joyce’s Dublin to Bram Stoker’s Transylvania, readers everywhere have traveled to regions far and wide. All from the comforts of their…
[from the stabenow.com vaults, first posted February 19, 2004] Today I took my leave of the USCGC Alex Haley and her crew. I know that for the past two weeks I’ve been writing what amounts to a recruiting poster. All I can tell you is that I wrote what I saw. Was I able to…
[from the stabenow.com vaults, first posted February 18, 2004] What a difference a day makes. Yesterday we worked with another cutter, testing an electronic positioning system that will help the Coast Guard prove cases in court, which required ten hours of steaming back and forth, pinging the other ship on radar and recording both positions…
[from the stabenow.com vaults, first posted February 17, 2004] So I got to do a courtesy call on another Coast Guard cutter. Which means I got suited up like the BTMs and took a boat ride. I can’t tell you how hard it has been NOT to beg, plead, whine and cry to do this.…
[from the stabenow.com vaults, first posted February 16, 2004] The Captain scrubbed a boarding due to heavy seas. The bosun’s mate, the person who drives the boarding party over to the fishing vessel in the small boat, came to the bridge afterward, and the Captain explained the reasons why he’d scrubbed the launch. “Agreed,” said…
[from the stabenow.com vaults, first posted February 15, 2004] About seasickness, since almost every single non-Coastie person who has emailed me has asked if I’m seasick. Yes, once, the first full day of patrol. I woke up, sat up, and threw up. Later that same day I walked into the wardroom pantry and the seaman…
[from the stabenow.com vaults, first posted February 14, 2004] Two poems I found posted by the mid-watch on yellow sticky notes on a bridge window. I added the titles. Night Watch Cold wind blowin’ On the sea tonight One screw turning’ One screw tight Box steaming In the lee tonight Cold wind blowin’ On the…