Like most Alaska immigrants, my roots continue to petition for equal time.

I come from very common stock, and I've always been uncomfortable with pretension and all the forms it can take, including disingenuous broadcasting.

The media is in the business of finding exceptions to everyday life. Bad things are still the exception. That's good, because once bad things stop being news, we really are in trouble. If people forget that bad is the exception, they think they live in a horrible world. There is so much that works and is right and friendly and warm. But we take that for granted.

Tom Kizzia hasn't just observed and written about Alaska for three-plus decades, he's lived it. 'Pilgrim's Wilderness' is a story that needed to be told by the only man who could tell it.

In school, you're taught a lesson and then given a test. In life, you're given a test that teaches you a lesson.

I'm not an impersonator. I've only got one voice and only do one guy and his first-person essays.

Americans are generally very self-sufficient and I think generally averse to pretension, just as I am.