Carolyn Kremers

Carolyn Kremers writes literary nonfiction and poetry, and is a dedicated teacher and lifelong musician. Her books include Place of the Pretend People: Gifts from a Yup'ik Eskimo Village (memoir), The Alaska Reader: Voices from the North (anthology), and Upriver (poetry). Upriver was a finalist for the 2014 Willa Award in Poetry, from Women Writing the West. Kremers designed and implemented the MFA creative nonfiction program at Eastern Washington University in Spokane and also taught for many years at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Her piece, "John Haines and the Dream Place," was named a "Notable" essay in Best American Essays 2012. Recent awards include First Place essay and Grand Prize in the 2021 Alaska Version 3 Creative Writing Contest (for "Field Trip to the Future -- Fairbanks, Alaska"), and the 2021 Andy Hope Literary Award from Cirque magazine (for the long poem, "The Arctic Refuge Coastal Plain: Fifteen Motets"). Kremers has been a guest writer in Alaska, Idaho, Michigan, Washington, and Russia; artist-in-residence at Gates of the Arctic National Park and Denali National Park; and writing resident at the Vermont Studio Center. For ten months in 2008-09 and again in 2015-16, she was a Fulbright Scholar at Buryat State University in Ulan Ude, Russia. In 2019, she received a Kathryn Davis Peace Fellowship from Middlebury College to continue studying the Russian language. In 2023, she was honored to receive an Alaska Literary Award for her writing. She lives in Fairbanks, Alaska.