Under Nushagak Bluff
Against the backdrop of the rising commercial fishing industry in an Alaska Native village, Under Nushagak Bluff is a powerful mid-century tale of women, love, loss, resilience, and the unexpected strength found in storytelling.
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Mia Heavener is of Norwegian, Polish, and Yup'ik heritage. Her experience in rural Alaska is both personal and professional. After graduating from MIT with a degree in civil engineering, Mia returned home to design water and wastewater systems in Alaskan Native villages. During the summers, she commercial fishes with her family in Bristol Bay. She believes that everyone should have a good whiff of the tundra at least once in their life, if not twice. She has an MFA from Colorado State University. Her fiction has appeared in Cortland Review and Willow Springs.
http: //miaheavener.com/
"Under Nushagak Bluff is slight and compelling, portraying its settings well and capturing original voices. Its story of generational inheritances and expectations, fate, and loyalty is filtered through the tough voices of Alaskan women." -Foreword Reviews
"It's an intriguing and important window into life among an Indigenous people and beautifully illustrates the push and pull of assimilation in pre-state Alaska." --Kirkus Reviews
"Heavener has gifted readers with a story both dreamy and authentic, a story made of many individual stories and celebrating oral storytelling and the value of stories altogether."--Anchorage Daily News
"[Under Nushagak Bluff] honors on every page a combination of sea, sky, beach, and tundra, along with the returning salmon, the crying gulls, and the ripe berries they bear."--Corinna Cook, Denali Sunrise
"Heavener has brought readers a story both dreamy and authentic, made of many individual stories and celebrating oral storytelling and the value of stories altogether." --Nancy Lord and David James, Anchorage Daily News
"Heavener's novel asks, precisely how does historic understanding erode? Where does the past, personal and collective, get mis-placed, mis-taken, coded, and ultimately concealed? Heavener explores these questions with care and grace, a deep respect for her characters, and an allegiance to the land. Indeed, the book honors on every page a combination of sea, sky, beach, and tundra, along with the returning salmon, the crying gulls, and the ripe berries they bear.
So it is a particularly fascinating novel to read during the present moment that is saturated with a global pandemic's fear and suffering, and also its vigilance, round-the-clock innovation, and far-reaching kindness." --Corrina Cook, Ph.D., Anchorage Press
