Another North

Jennifer Brice is the author of The Last Settlers, a work of documentary journalism, and Unlearning to Fly, a memoir. Another North is her first collection of essays. Born in Fairbanks, Alaska, she teaches contemporary literature and creative writing at Colgate University in upstate New York.

"Brice previously chronicled her Alaska youth in Unlearning to Fly. In Another North, she returns to Fairbanks as a divorced woman longing for a sense of home. The new collection takes readers from her life as a professor in New York‘s Leatherstocking Country to her days piloting small planes in the Alaska bush. Brice is a beautiful prose stylist, and her book navigates the turbulence of middle age with a steady—and elegant—hand."—Lorraine Berry, Los Angeles Times"Jennifer Brice's Another North is a marvel, a master class in how you turn obsession and experience into art. I don't know of another writer who can write about so many things (death and the perfect T-shirt, Alaska and upstate New York, the life of the mind and the life of the body) so ingeniously, with such vulnerability, humor, and compassion. This is a book of offhand brilliance, one to savor and read slowly, if you can restrain yourself. I couldn't. Once I started reading, I could not stop until I reached the end. And once I reached the end, I missed it, and so I started reading it all over again."—Brock Clarke, author of Who Are You, Calvin Bledsoe"Jennifer Brice's wry, knowing, and elegant essays are shaped by recursive, elliptical arcs that are always moving and generous while also being rigorous in their pursuit of her 'fugitive truths.' Brice is a wonderful writer, and I loved reading her precise and intimate depiction of what one can see from the complicated vantage of middle age."—Dana Spiotta, author of Wayward"A book full humor, intellect, poetry, and, above all, playfulness of form that makes every piece its own delight to read. Brice flies small planes in Alaska, excavates her own and her family's romantic mythologies, and, above all, investigates the way we reveal ourselves through the thingy-ness of life: coveted mink coats, daffodils marched across a muddy field, a child's broken eyeglasses, a Tiffany diamond, a bridge deck, and a whole house. In Brice's hands the objects that make up the structures and detritus of a life become potent talismans that transport the reader into characters' desires and fears and eras. There is family drama, love, sex, work, motherhood, adventure, and female friendship in these pages--all stitched together with Brice's quick, self-deprecating wit, elegance of form, and above all, desire to make meaning from all parts of life through story as she creates a complex portrait of the person she is and once was and the person she has sometimes wished to be. You will disappear into these pages-they are a gift and a pleasure."—CJ Hauser, author of The Crane Wife"These essays infuse memories, objects, and events with meaning. They include philosophical musings on the passage of time and on grieving friends; they cover feelings of ecstasy over the familiarity of Brice’s grandmother’s lima beans and cream casserole. Place is paramount throughout, mooring the stories. Indeed, places are personified, as though they are capable of responding to Brice’s love."—Kristine Morris, Foreword