This interview with Erma Odrach represents a lovely surprise that recently came my way. I’ve always been a fan of the short story form as well as enamored with the wilderness and remote areas thanks to my stint working in Yellowstone National Park during my college years. Alaska is on my list of places I long to see, so I’ve added her story collection to my reading list. If you are drawn to the mystique and allure of Alaska, I hope you will add her book to your reading list as well.
Official Bio: Erma is Canadian and lives in Toronto with her family, cat, and dog. Alaska or Bust and Other Stories is her first book of fiction and is largely based on the time she lived in the Yukon/Alaska region. She has a love of the North–the beauty, the wild, the pristine rivers and lakes. Also, she’s been a lit translator for many years, translating the works of her late father, Theodore Odrach.
1. Please provide a brief synopsis of your book.
Alaska or Bust and Other Stories. Funny, serious, quirky – the reader is taken off the beaten path on a sub-arctic journey, where the land is raw and beautiful and larger-than-life. Though the stories are fiction, they are all drawn on real events and people. Allow me to introduce you to a few of my characters and to show you how I took them from being real to not so real:
In “Luke’s Libido” Luke from Fairbanks turns things upside down with his high-running libido. ‘Luke’, though not his real name, existed and worked in a small shop selling men’s products. I changed his hair from blond to black, made him more aloof, and gave him a pick-up truck to drive instead of a Volvo. There was always a lot of gossip surrounding him, and I drew on that.
In “The Really Big Nose”, Daphne is a vaudeville performer in Dawson City and she has a really big nose–she re-enacts the wild and crazy gold rush days of 1898. To disguise her I gave her an even bigger nose, made her skinnier, and gave her a green and white parasol to carry around.
In “Alaska or Bust”, Giorgio, a fancy Italian tourist cycles up the Alaska Highway and gets mauled by a bear. Though it’s true, he did get mauled by a bear, in reality he never owned a pizzeria and he was from Naples not Florence. The women went crazy for him.
In “Chuck Goes to Haines Alaska on the Fourth of July,” Chuck, a street-wise city mongrel jumps out of the back of a pick up truck and gets lost in the wild. I kept Chuck true to himself; after all, he was just a dog.
There are 25 stories in total.
2. Tell us a little bit about what motivates or inspires your writing.
It’s quite simple really, I write because I enjoy it, it takes me to another world, and in that world I am free to do and say as I please. It’s also a great form of escapism, maybe even therapy. My father was a writer and immigrated from Belarus to Canada. I spent a lot of time translating his work (fiction) into English. My translations have appeared in many magazines such as Connecticut Review, Mobius, the Penguin Book of Christmas Stories and more. In 2008 Wave of Terror (a novel about Stalinist occupation during WWII) was published by Chicago Review Press. So, I guess writing has always been a part of my life in one way or another. My father is my inspiration, though he died when I was nine
3. Writing aside, what passions drive your life?
I have two daughters and it’s great having watched them grow into adulthood and with all the happy and difficult moments along the way. It’s fun to chill with them or maybe go for a coffee and shoot the breeze. Also, I love architecture, live theatre, biking, and where food is concerned, curry, sushi, watermelon, and yogurt.
4. It’s hard to pick just one, but what do you consider your favorite novel and why?
I lean toward the Russian classics, and if I had to pick one, then I would go for Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky, and maybe The Idiot too. I love how his work is so full of different voices and perspectives, and it’s all so confusing and unwieldy, and then everything gets sorted out and comes together in the end. His characters are all believable, and there’s psychological tension and inner turmoil, especially in Raskolnikov’s case, as he struggles with the guilt of his crime. Another favorite is Mihail Zoshchenko, the satirist. Of the more modern writers, I like Victor Pelevin, who writes post-modern, eclectic fiction but carries on with the Russian tradition of black humor. Good writing inspires me overall.
5. What is the name of your blog and what can readers expect to find there?
My blog is called Bank Street, which I’ve recently started up. It’s a meeting place, a community, a neighborhood, where people get together, do their own thing and share poetry, book reviews, craft sales, book excerpts, interviews and more. My blog’s name comes from a novel I’m working on, which is set on an inner city street called Bank Street. Here are some of the people that live there: Theodore, the tormented writer; Pavlo, the armless painter; Christy, the not-so-happy divorcee; Antonia, the man-killer; Rogerio the bootlegger; the Lemon Bucket Orkestra and more!
6. What does your drafting and/or editing process entail?
I like to write in the morning if I can, when I am most alert. Though I start with an idea, I never know where I’ll end up and sometimes I surprise myself, for better or for worse. It’s always fun. Also, I belong to an authors’ group and we get together and share. My editor is Veronica Castle at Crimson Cloak Publishing and she’s great.
7. Are you traditionally published or self-published?
I’m traditionally published by Crimson Cloak Publishing, a small but very active and eclectic press in Missouri. They provide all the editing, do the formatting etc. Promotion is something we do as team, but that’s true of most publishers these days. It’s tough out there! The cover for Alaska or Bust is an oil painting by Leslie Dolman.
8. Can you offer one or two helpful tips for fellow writers when it comes to marketing and publicity?
As we all know, online marketing is invaluable, though oversaturated, where the same marketing tips seem to get regurgitated over and over. It’s good to take a break from it all and try and meet up with your readership face-to-face such as in libraries, book clubs, book stores, cafes, readings and so on.
9. What future projects can we look forward to?
I’m working on a novel, which focuses on a street called Bank Street in Toronto, and it’s all about the people that live there. Characters are a central element to all storytelling–they have to show a range of emotion such as fear, sadness, anger, excitement, happiness and so on to make them believable. Bringing them to life is one of my favorite challenges. Everyone on Bank Street is up to something, and they all exist(ed), though mostly in a vague, abstract sort of way. They do a lot of oddball things–they drink way too much, hoard cats, bootleg, even kill. The book, though serious, also has considerable humor.
Erma’s daughter sitting 100 miles south of the Arctic Circle.
10. Is there anything else you want your potential readers to know?
I’ve been called a turtle, which may be true, but I’m more like the turtle in the Turtle and the Hare. For example, not too long ago a friend of mine and I were late for an event. He was rushing, telling me to hurry. I took my time and got there first. He went the wrong way. I pace myself in my writing.
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You can connect with Erma and her social media accounts via her website.
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Please share responsibly. Jeri Walker, 2016.
Thanks for another great interview. I’m looking forward to reading Alaska or Bust and Other Stories…sounds like just the kind of jaunt I seem to be up for these days:)
Alaska is beautiful, a great place to visit. I absolutely love the Alaska Panhandle. I’m Canadian and in the Yukon we have no coastline, but when they were setting up borders in the early 1900’s, we almost got Skagway! Unfortunately, we lost out in the end.
Hi Erma, you have an interesting sense of humor! I’m not surprised you’re a Russian lit fan. I didn’t get through C & P but I only tried it once. I should try again LOL. I love the book cover for your short story collection and I think Alaska is an awesome setting! Thanks, Jeri for the interview with Erma. Also, I agree with that last tip about real book promo and interacting with live readers—good one!
Hi Lisa: It’s true, when you’re down/oppressed it’s always best to find humor, even if it’s dark – the Russians got that one right. And not to forget, Alaska has a rich Russian history – all the gift shops sell Matryoshka dolls and there are Russian Orthodox churches sprinkled here and there along the coast. Alaska is awesome!
Hi Jeri, what a great interview. Alaska is an awesome and beautiful place. I look forward to reading Alaska or Bust. Alaska would be a great sething for some truly interesting stories.
Hi Susan: Alaska is very raw and beautiful. It shares a geography and history with Canada’s Yukon Territory, so I decided to use both the state and territory as a backdrop for my stories (which are largely about ordinary and not-so-ordinary people). For example, though the Alaska Highway was built by the US (in the 1940s to stop the Japanese), it is mostly in Canada. Then there’s the Klondike gold rush of 1898, where most gold seekers were American, though Dawson City is Canadian. And then there’s the great and mighty Yukon river flowing out of Canada, into the heart of Alaska, only to empty in the Bering Sea. It’s a fun and fascinating corner of the continent for sure!
Alaska or Bust sounds like a great set of stories with some pretty interesting characters. I love the tip about meeting up with your readership face-to-face.
Hi Donna,
Though the stories are about a varied group of people, some oddball, some not so oddball, I made a conscious effort to incorporate the geography and fascinating history of the region, but without overdoing it!
Meeting up face-to-face is great, especially when there’s feedback!
Thanks for introducing Erma and her book here. It was an enlightening read. And it’s always great to learn about other fellow Canadian authors. 🙂
Thanks DG Kaye. Glad you enjoyed the book intro! The true North is definitely a land of extremes: dark in the winter, up to 24 hours of sunlight in the summer; down to -30 degrees in the winter, +80 degrees in summer. I think it does something to the psyche.
Hi Erma,
I have always been fascinated by short stories and would like to read your book. I enjoyed reading about you and your goals, the turtle part resonated with me and gave me great inspiration to keep going!
Wishing you great success with your book!
Thanks so much, Balroop! I also love the short story form because it’s really storytelling and can be read in one sitting. Short stories are like mini novels, using many of the same literary techniques. When writing Alaska or Bust, I had so many people and events to consider, the short story seemed the natural choice.
I enjoyed this interview and will look for the book Alaska or Bust. Thanks for including the photo of the pups – absolutely fabulous – and also the one of Emma’s daughter, beautiful scenery.
Hi Lenie,
If you get around to reading Alaska or Bust I hope you like it! All the stories are based on true events and people (some more, some less), and I inject humor wherever I can.
I agree, those puppies are so cute. There are huskies everywhere up north and many of the mutts have husky in them. There was even a chihuahua with blue eyes and a bushy tail!
My daughter traveled to the Land of the Midnight Sun last summer and loved it!
Stories are a great way to get a feel for a place and the people who live there. I’ve never been to Alaska so I’m pretty interested, especially in some of the characters that she describes.
Hi Ken,
Alaska and the Yukon are great places to visit, but I would recommend spending the winter, to really get the feel of the place. Very dark, very cold in winter (not for everyone!) It’s off the beaten path, wild, rugged and remote, even the towns are all surrounded by wilderness. But it’s all very beautiful.
The region does, however, seem to attract people searching or escaping from something or someone. The characters in my stories are mostly ordinary people trying to find their way, people I have come to know. One of my favorite things to do as an author is to watch people, especially when they do quirky, oddball things.
Your book sounds as humorous as “A Knucklehead in Alaska.” The adventures of a young man in the 1920s. It’s great fun to take true events and fictionalize them. Hope you have great success with the book!
Hi RoseMary,
A lot of the stories in my book have humorous edges, but a few are serious (dealing with dementia, domestic abuse, mental health), and it’s tricky to inject humor into them. But I love humor in books overall, even if it’s a dark humor.
‘A Knucklehead in Alaska’ sounds great – a really, really rough and rugged place in the 1920s for sure, and with no road access! No Alaska Highway yet. I already checked it out on Amazon – a great story and a great back-story too. Thanks for the info!
Very enjoyable, especially because I am fascinated by Alaska. Thanks to my background in travel, it’s the only state in the US I haven’t visited so changing that is pretty high on the bucket list. Erma’s stories sound wonderful so I definitely plan to take a closer look.
Hi Marquita!
The US has some beautiful places but the special thing about Alaska is it’s not connected to any state, only the wilds of Canada (which is also beautiful and part of my book). I went up there the first time in my 20s when I was a student – friends and I hitchhiked the Alaska Highway and we got a ride in a flat-bed truck. No room in the cab! It was a bumpy, dusty ride, but so awesome! The Alaska Panhandle is my favorite with all the fjords and inlets. Hope you get there!
Every place seems to have its own story that needs to be told. The stories are there, waiting for someone just to pluck them out of their hiding places. I guess the bigger the place, the more stories there are. Alaska is a huge place, so there must be so many stories waiting to be given birth from there. Thanks for sharing this wonderful interview with us.
Thanks William!
Hello William!
It’s true, every place has its own story, and then on top of that there’s so much to draw on, an author can’t possibly cover everything! There are many fascinating, incredible stories out of Alaska, sometimes it’s hard to believe they can actually be true (but they are!) – lost in the wild, confronted by a bear, living in a cave … My stories tend to be more about people I came to know, living in and around the more settled areas, often escaping from and/or looking for something. But the one thing they all have in common is a love of the land.
Great interview! We have a local bookstore in our area and it’s so nice to see the authors take the time and visit the readers. It invaluable. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks Sabrina!
I’m glad you liked the interview! I love author interviews too and hearing what other authors have to say about their books. Authors are readers too. Thanks again!
As a fellow Canadian, I enjoyed ‘meeting’ Erna. Alaska or Bust sounds like a winner! Thx for the great profile, Jeri.
Hello Doreen,
Yes, I’m Canadian too and when I lived in Whitehorse I spent a lot of time in Alaska, exploring different parts of the state, hanging out, meeting people, hearing their stories.
The Yukon and Alaska have a shared history (the Tlingit indigenous people – in and around the Panhandle, The Alaska Highway, the Klondike gold rush), and they’re both stuck up there together in the very far northwest corner of the continent. But it’s raw and beautiful – the Last Frontier. Thanks for your kind words!
Another great interview Jeri!
I will take the following advice on board;
“Meet your readership face to face”
It allows your readers to put a face to a name. It is all too easy to hide behind a screen – it offers a form of protection especially for introverts (like moi!)
Hi Phoenicia,
I’m glad you liked the interview! I’m pretty much an introvert too but once you get yourself out there, people are generally nice and encouraging, and then it all becomes worth it. The other day at a reading I met some people who had visited Alaska – we exchanged stories – it was great!
I love these interviews because you can get a taste our the author’s writing style even in their answers. What a delight meeting Erma! I’m already intrigued by her characters!
Thanks for your comments, Meredith!
I think my favorite part about writing is watching people (especially when they do out-of-the-ordinary things – which most of us do, sooner or later). Alaska or Bust is really about people I came to know when I lived there. “Marcel”, whose character appears here and there, is the only one who knows he’s in my book. But he made me change his name in one of the stories because he felt it might implicate him in some way. That was fine by me. Writing about people is fun.
Thank-you for a great interview Jeri and Erma thanks for your tips and encouraging words. I love nature and it is great to see incorporate Alaska into your stories. I have always wanted to visit. I am a morning writer to. If I don’t do it in the back morning chances are I am not going to do it. Good luck on everything! 🙂
Thanks Crystal.
Hope you get to visit Alaska one day! It’s awesome! The Last Frontier, as they say. Nature at its best, I say!
Hi Erma,
Nice to meet you here on Jeri’s blog. Your book is another reason for me to get excited about Alaska. My husband and I are hoping to get up there this summer as we have a good friend living in Anchorage who has offered to guide us on a super special kayaking/camping trip. If not this summer, then next. But we’ll get there!
Sending my regards to Toronto. I’m originally from Vancouver used to travel to TO regularly for one of my jobs. I loved the food, but the temperature variances from summer to winter, not so much!
Hi Laura,
Thanks for dropping by! I hope you get to Anchorage! It would make for a very long but awesome road trip, and you’d get to see northern BC and the Yukon. The scenery all the way is breathtaking. My book is about everyday people set against this larger-than-life backdrop. A kayaking/camping trip into the wild sounds great, especially with someone who is in the know! Hope it’s this summer!
Thanks so much Jeri for interviewing me on your blog! It was a great experience and a pleasure meeting everyone. I was also happy to learn about all your writing and editing services. Should the need arise I now know where to go. Thanks once again!!!
Erma, it’s been a pleasure having you here. Best of luck with your continued writing journey 🙂
Erma — You have a breezy style which comes through in your interview with Jeri. I’ve never been to Alaska, but friends who have say it was a great experience. My cousin’s two daughters moved from Seattle to Alaska several years ago. It was supposed to be temporary, but they’ve bought houses so I guess it’s permanent for now.
Hi Jeannette,
Your cousins two daughters bought houses in Alaska – I think that’s call the spell of the North. Despite the harsh climate (in the winter) and rugged terrain, a lot of ‘temporaries’ end up staying. I can think of a handful. I left due to health reasons but I’m not so sure I would have remained. After a while, it’s easy to start feeling boxed-in with a type of claustrophobia setting in. It’s always good to make trips ‘Outside’, once in a while.
Jeannette, when you visit, you might end up buying a house in Juneau!
Erma is fascinating! I love how she broke down her characters and then stated the change from reality to fiction. And the cover of her book is beautiful. She seems to really love writing characters, and I am character-driven reader. She’s on my list! Thanks for sharing.
Hi Denise,
Thanks so much for your very kind words!
I spent a lot of time translating my father’s works, and though he was for the most part a political fiction writer (WWII/Stalinism; eye-witness accounts), he loved to focus on people, and sometimes on the whacky things they did. Even in horrible times he found humor. I realize now I was influenced by him a lot.
The stories in Alaska or Bust are about normal folks who happen to live there – maybe they were born there, are looking for something, escaping from something down south. Throughout, however, I’m always mindful of the history and geography of the region (but I couldn’t possibly touch on everything!), as you can’t have one without the other.
I also love character-driven books!
I like the turtle and the hare analogy. Faster doesn’t always mean better.
I wish Emma Odrach much luck with her book. I love the cover and I can see how it would have started as an oil painting. It is interesting how she adapted real people into characters. I wrote a play in college where I took a specific real character (someone who jumped off a bridge “for fun” and ended up paralyzed) and was very confused how to protect myself and the real person. It was interesting to see how Emma does it. Good interview.
Hi Erica,
Your play in college must have been a difficult one to write, especially to find ways to protect the jumper. What a sad story. One stupid mistake in your youth and your life is changed forever.
Glad you liked the interview!