Alaska Literary Award, 2024
Fairbanks
Susan Campbell arrived in Fairbanks, Alaska in 1989 and found home. Her life as a poet, teacher, book artist, and outdoor adventurer is tethered to the far north. She treasures the thirty years she dedicated to teaching elementary school. Decades of wilderness adventures in Alaska have keenly shaped her life and her writing. Susan creates artist books that couple her poetry with natural objects and images that reflect her astonishment for the natural world. Some of her artist books are in the collections of the Alaska State Museum and the University of Alaska Rasmuson Library Rare Books Collection.
Acknowledging the serendipitous good fortune that has come her way, Susan feels honored to have been an Artist-in-Residence in Denali National Park, a contributing writer, artist, and curator for In a Time of Change (ITOC), a University of Alaska Fairbanks collaborative arts-humanities-science program, and a founding member of Northwoods Book Arts Guild. Her poems have appeared in various journals, including Alaska Quarterly Review, Ice Floe II: International Poetry of the Far North, Cirque, Ploughshares, and in a specially commissioned musical score for the Alaska Chamber Singers. Her first book of poetry is forthcoming from Boreal Books, an imprint of Red Hen Press.