About Seth Kantner
Seth Kantner is a commercial fisherman, writer and wildlife photographer. He was born and raised in northern Alaska and his art reflects his love for this land and the animals who live on it, and his belief in the importance of wildness left wild.
Kantner was schooled at home and on the land, and attended the University of Alaska and later the University of Montana where he received a BA, with honors, in Journalism.
He's worked as a fisherman, trapper, gardener, mechanic, igloo builder and adjunct professor. His writings and photographs have appeared in Outside, Alaska Geographic, the New York Times, Prairie Schooner, and in other magazines, literary journals and anthologies. He's a former columnist for the Anchorage Daily News and presently writes a bi-monthly dispatch on climate change in the Arctic for Orion magazine.
In 2004 his debut novel, Ordinary Wolves, was released to literary acclaim. Publisher's Weekly called it "A tour de force." The Los Angeles Times named the book "A rare thing of beauty." The novel won the Milkweed National Fiction Prize, the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association Award, and Kantner received a Whiting Award naming him one of the nation's top ten emerging writers. Since that time, he has had to incorporate national book tours and other publicity into a life previously focused on the land, sea, and daily weather conditions and movements of animals.
Kantner was nominated in 2006 for the position of Alaska State Writer Laureate, which he turned down to pursue work on his newly released book, Shopping for Porcupine. He lives in northwest Alaska with his wife, Stacey, and his daughter, China.