Debut Author Snapshot: Eowyn Ivey

Settlers of the Alaskan frontier in the early 20th century were made of tougher stuff than most, hand clearing countless acres to stake their claims and enduring subzero temperatures. Born and raised on those northern lands, Eowyn Ivey understands the sometimes brutal nature of the region, and also the fierce pride Alaskans have for their state. Ivey's debut novel, The Snow Child, captures this duality in the narrative of a lonely married couple, Jack and Mabel, who are struggling to survive on their homestead in 1920s Alaska. Mourning the stillborn death of their first baby, they build a child out of snow. The next morning they find footsteps in the icy whiteness, and a young girl named Faina comes to their door, appearing as if by magic. The author, also a bookseller at the independent Fireside Books in Palmer, Alaska, shared with Goodreads some images of her home that provide for her tale's untamed setting.

Goodreads: Can you give a brief description of what life would have been like for homesteaders in the 1920s? What similar challenges do you face in Alaska today?

Eowyn Ivey: I imagine it must have been an isolating, physically grueling way to earn a living. With very basic tools, they would have been trying to carve a home and farm out of the wilderness. Their livelihood depended entirely on their own hands.

Some aspects of Jack and Mabel's lives are directly informed by my own experiences in Alaska. We hunt moose and caribou for our meals, grow vegetables, gather wild berries, haul water, and raise chickens for eggs and meat. So when I wrote the scene in which Jack and Mabel are plucking chickens, I didn't need to do any research—my husband and I have done it ourselves. The difference, though, is that whenever necessary we have many other options: grocery stores, credit cards, paved highways, gas stations, entire cities of people just down the road. Those who came to Alaska in the early 1900s to homestead had fewer safety nets. If they didn't shoot a moose, it wasn't a simple drive to Safeway. If they ran out of wood for the stove, they would be in real danger of freezing to death. It was at that thin line of survival that I knew I could really test my characters and discover what they were made of.

GR: The novel is inspired by Snegurochka, a character from Russian lore also known as the Snow Maiden. How did you make the story your own?

EI: I was at work labeling and shelving books when I came across a children's illustrated version of the Russian fairy tale. I read it standing right there, and it was such a revelation—a magical story set in a northern landscape that could be my own backyard! I had never heard of Snegurochka. I spent the next months researching the many different versions of it told over hundreds of years. I wanted to explore it through my own characters and the specific setting of an Alaska homestead, and I hoped to give it the emotional depth of a modern story.

GR: Have you always wanted to write a novel? What was the most surprising part of the writing process?

EI: Since I was very young, I've loved reading and writing stories. It took me nearly a decade working as a newspaper reporter before I realized that I needed to restructure my life to make writing fiction possible. I left journalism and went to work at Fireside Books, and in the mornings and evenings I began writing fiction. I had invested five years in a completely different project when I discovered the myth of Snegurochka. For a while I tried to force myself to finish that first attempt, but ultimately the story of the snow child became too seductive. Even as I wrote the first draft over the course of a year, with the many versions of the fairy tale swirling in my imagination as I finished chapter after chapter, I didn't know how it was going to conclude until I arrived there. In fact, a part of me wanted it to end so differently. But what surprised me is the way in which the story and characters and themes began to dictate the book's trajectory, so that in a way I was helpless to force it any direction except where it was destined to go.

GR: What's next?

EI: I am working on another novel, one that shares some similarities with The Snow Child—historical Alaska setting, fantastical elements. But I imagine it to be more epic and adventurous. Last summer I was fortunate enough to be awarded a Rasmuson grant to research this new novel, and my husband and I spent a week floating by raft down the Copper River here in Alaska. It was incredible to get to see firsthand the rugged, beautiful setting I could only imagine as I was writing. I'm having a lot of fun!