Mary Odden’s essays have appeared in The Georgia Review, Northwest Review, Nimrod, the Alaska Quarterly Review, and Under Northern Lights, an anthology of contemporary Alaska art and writing. Born in eastern Oregon, she traveled north to work on forest fires in Alaska. She studied writing at the University of Montana and the University of Alaska Fairbanks. She has worked as an aviation dispatcher, village teen counselor, writing teacher, and as publisher/editor of a small newspaper in Alaska’s Copper River Valley. She lives with her husband Jim Odden in Nelchina, Alaska.
Mary and bookcrafter daughter Kari Odden have a new 2023 project at Bookbaby, Upcountry Cranberry: A Treasury of Sour, Savory, and Sweet Wild Lingonberry Recipes. You can order it here or at other online stores.
Mary's collection of memoir essays, Mostly Water: Reflections Rural and North, was published in 2020 by Red Hen Press and is available through traditional outlets.
Selected columns from the Copper River Record comprise Odden's Who's Driving: Windshield Time with a Small Alaska Newspaper, 2017. You can order that book here and through other online stores (Amazon, B&N, etc.).