
Evan Swensen
- Author, Book Publisher, and Developer of Author Masterminds
- Author Masterminds Charter Member
- Host of Alaska Outdoors Magazine Podcast
Articles
The Red Pen We All Carry
“No passion in the world is equal to the passion to alter someone else’s draft.” — H.G. Wells Writers know the truth of those words …

Don’t Launch to an Empty Room: How to Build Your Audience Before the Book Is Out
Here’s your story, fully formatted for Medium. It follows Medium’s conventions: clear subheadings, italics for book titles, a strong lede, and an ending that invites …

Flip, Don’t Scroll: The Fun Science Behind Paper Power
Back when I was young — before “screen time” entered the vocabulary — reading meant sitting by a window in the big red wingback chair, …

Writing Without Living Is Vanity
“How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.” Henry David Thoreau wasn’t criticizing writers — he …

Gravity of a Single Word
It happened in a place so quiet, even paper turning felt like a disruption. The room, a modest university lecture hall in Pennsylvania, smelled faintly …

The Trouble With Words That Can’t Make Up Their Minds
Fun Trivia About the Words That Say One Thing — and the Opposite I live in a town where people argue over everything — except …

I don’t know
Wislawa Szymborska’s line—“Poets, if they’re genuine, must always keep repeating, ‘I don’t know’”—echoes the humility at the heart of both poetry and wisdom. She wasn’t …

Measured by Letters, Remembered by Readers
In the English alphabet, each letter holds a position: A is 1, B is 2, C is 3, and so on through Z at 26. …

Meet the World’s Fastest Reader
The Man Who Could Read a Book Over Lunch — and Dessert Too Every so often, a bit of trivia floats by, grabbing your attention, …

Wit, Faith, and Fiction
“I often wonder if we were all characters in one of God’s dreams.” With these words, Muriel Spark pierced the boundary between the seen and …

From Me to We
“How do I write a memoir both personal and universally relatable?” It’s a question often asked in quiet tones, almost sheepishly, as if sharing a …

Scandal, Seduction, and Suicide
The First American Novel Was a Scandal America’s very first novel wasn’t a story of patriotism, politics, or pioneers. It was a full-blown scandal wrapped …

Podcasts

Evan, who lives in Anchorage, has 9 children, 25 grandchildren, and 6 great grandchildren. As a pilot, he has logged more than 4,000 hours of flight time in Alaska, in both wheel and float planes. He is a serious recreation hunter and fisherman, equally comfortable casting a flyrod or using bait, or lures. He has been published in many national magazines and is the author of four books.