{"id":2010,"date":"2015-04-24T07:48:05","date_gmt":"2015-04-24T07:48:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/saraloewen.com\/?p=2010"},"modified":"2015-04-24T07:48:05","modified_gmt":"2015-04-24T07:48:05","slug":"gaining-daylight-wins-willa-award-for-creative-non-fiction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/saraloewen.com\/?p=2010","title":{"rendered":"“Gaining Daylight” Wins Willa Award for Creative Non-Fiction"},"content":{"rendered":"

The following is from the Kodiak Daily Mirror<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"C0RB_KDM07ARTSweb\"As a library technician and a published author, Sara Loewen-Danelski knows books. She works in Kodiak College\u2019s library, and published \u201cGaining Daylight: Life on Two Islands\u201d a year and a half ago.<\/p>\n

Now, that book has won the Willa Award for creative non-fiction.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was great news,\u201d Loewen-Danelski said. \u201cI knew some of the entrants and I really admired their books so that felt doubly exciting.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Willa Awards are given by Women Writing the West to the authors of women\u2019s or girls\u2019 stories that are set in the North American west, according to the WWW website.<\/p>\n

The awards are named after Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Willa Cather.<\/p>\n

One of the things that Loewen-Danelski likes about the awards is that librarians choose the winning books.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe librarians are the judges. They\u2019re doing the reading,\u201d Loewen-Danelski said. \u201cIt\u2019s neat because they have good material, you know they\u2019re well read.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cGaining Daylight\u201d is creative nonfiction about Loewen-Danelski\u2019s experience living in Kodiak during the winters and spending summers set net fishing in Uyak Bay with her husband and children. The second island referenced in the title is Amook Island, located in Uyak Bay.<\/p>\n

The book is made up of a 12 essays that Loewen-Danelski wrote for a graduate class while she was pursuing her master\u2019s degree in creative nonfiction. The book weaves in natural and island history and Loewen-Danelski\u2019s experience balancing the modern life with the more ancient way of living.<\/p>\n

\u201cGaining Daylight\u201d was published through the University of Alaska Press and is for sale here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Reviews from Amazon<\/a>\u00a0include: \u201cThis book is something special,\u201d \u201cIf you haven\u2019t been to Kodiak, you will feel like you have after reading Gaining Daylight,\u201d \u201cWell written and a joy to read,\u201d and \u201cYou want to read this book!\u201d<\/p>\n

Loewen-Danelski says the award has helped give her book a boost.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe University of Alaska press is a great press, but it\u2019s a small press, and it can\u2019t do a lot with publicity,\u201d Loewen-Danelski said. \u201cBut because of the Willa Award, the book gets a second life too.\u201d<\/p>\n

Loewen-Danelski found out about winning the award while she was out in Uyak Bay, running a skiff to Larsen Bay.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe cell phone service popped up on my phone and the email popped up that the book had won the award,\u201d Loewen-Danelski said. \u201cIt was kind of fun to be riding back across to our fish site, which is the focus of so many of these essays.\u201d<\/p>\n

Loewen-Danelski accepted the award\u00a0in Colorado with her family, and she hopes to continue writing in the future.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s a good motivation to keep writing and to make the time for writing,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Written by\u00a0Julie Herrmann<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The following is from the Kodiak Daily Mirror: As a library technician and a published author, Sara Loewen-Danelski knows books. She works in Kodiak College\u2019s library, and published \u201cGaining Daylight: Life on Two Islands\u201d a year and a half ago. Now, that book has won the Willa Award for creative non-fiction. \u201cIt was great news,\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/saraloewen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2010"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/saraloewen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/saraloewen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saraloewen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saraloewen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2010"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/saraloewen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2010\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2013,"href":"https:\/\/saraloewen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2010\/revisions\/2013"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/saraloewen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2010"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saraloewen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2010"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saraloewen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2010"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}