Coming Soon!

Two books coming in 2026. Alaska Literary Field Guide, Mountaineers Books, March 2026 (available for pre-order now), and Let Them Tell You: New and Selected Short Stories, University of Alaska Press, July 2026. 
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pH: A Novel 
(Alaska Northwest Books, 2017)

When marine biologist Ray Berringer and his student crew embark on an oceanographic cruise in the Gulf of Alaska, the waters are troubled in more ways than one. Ray’s co-leader, the famed chemist Jackson Oakley, is abandoning ship just as the ocean’s decreasing pH levels are becoming a major concern for marine life. Helen, a grad student of Iñupiat (Eskimo) heritage, is suddenly left in charge of the cruise’s chemistry work. Annabel, an environmental artist along to help interpret research for the public, “does her own thing.” Back ashore, corrosion extends to the state university, and Ray’s “pteropod gang” finds itself collaborating on more than science. 

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Early Warming

Early Warming: Crisis and Response in the Climate-Changed North (Counterpoint Press, 2011)

Nancy's book goes beyond documenting the climate change already so dramatic in Alaska and the Canadian Northwest to look at how northerners, especially indigenous peoples known for their resilience and adaptation, are responding.

Early Warming was the campus book read at Edmonds Community College for the 2015-16 school year. It was previously the Western Reads  book at Western Washington University in Bellingham for the 2013-14 school year.

Here's my presentation at Edmonds Community College in April 2016. 

- read more about Early Warming -

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Made of Salmon

Made of Salmon: Alaska Stories From The Salmon Project 
(University of Alaska Press, May 2016)

Nancy edited this anthology, which includes a foreword by Bella Hammond; essays by twenty-one of Alaska's best essayists, including Ernestine Hayes, Seth Kantner, and Heather Lende;  and thirty-plus more personal stories by Alaskans about their relationships with salmon. The cover photo and interior color photos are by Clark James Mishler.

- read more about The Salmon Project -

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Introductions...

Nancy Lord, a former Alaska State Writer Laureate (2008-2010), writes both fiction and literary nonfiction. Her nonfiction books include Fish Camp: Life on an Alaskan Shore, Beluga Days: Tracking a White Whale’s Truths, and Early Warming: Crisis and Response in the Climate-changed North. Her climate-related novel is pH.  Her fiction includes the forthcoming Let Them Tell You:  New and Selected Short Stories and pH: A Novel. She also edited the anthologies Made of Salmon and Alaska Literary Field Guide. She taught creative writing in the University of Alaska system for many years and currently teaches science writing in the Johns Hopkins University graduate science writing program. She lives in Homer, Alaska, and enjoys hiking, bird and wildlife watching, kayaking, and beachcombing. - read more -

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