Vonnegut Bio; Hank Nuwer Stories
Grab a coffee and enjoy the story clearinghouse of Hank Nuwer with photos of Alaska and its wildlife by Malgorzata (Gosia) Nuwer.
You’ll find that I’ve added some finished and partially finished biography-in-progress of Kurt Vonnegut, “The Man in the Hole.”
Hank Nuwer’s Indiana University Press books on hazing. Podcast in The Culture
Podcast of “Weed in the Garden of Academe” with Hank Nuwer
Scroll down for archived Realalaskadaily stories.Thank you for reading. Got a compliment or gripe? Drop a line to Hjnuwer@Alaska.edu. Gosia and I want to keep this site ad-free. Trying to raise funds for last-minute research on my Kurt Vonnegut biography: “Kurt Vonnegut: The Man in the Hole. A Life of Reinvention.” (“Not authorized, but authentic scholarship”). Your donation would be so helpful: Hank Nuwer, PO Box 73446; Fairbanks, AK 99707-3446.
An Alaska Tragedy Narrowly Averted
The Show Must Go on This Weekend and Next
By Hank Nuwer Tension was high last weekend when the Fairbanks Drama Association presented playwright Frederick Knott’s classic “Dial `M’ for Murder. The tension wasn’t just onstage from the attempted murder of Margot Wendice, unfaithful wife to the...
Part Three: Alaska Legends Attain Fame
Last Frontier Tales Overnight Success? Not Hardly By Hank Nuwer “Overnight success” for Alaska artist Fred Machetanz and his author wife Sara took a “mere” 15 years of struggle and penny-pinching. Ever after Fred’s 1962 one-artist show at an...
Dial M for Murder opens in Fairbanks on Oct. 24, 2025
Hank Nuwer as the Chief Inspector in Dial M for Murder, Fairbanks Drama Association, Alaska. The director is Bill Wright.
Elegy for my late Ball State University student Darla Stafford
One of the hardest-working, nicest students I ever taught at Ball State University (1985-1989) was a national spokeswoman for the U.S. Postal Service during the anthrax mail scare aftermath in 2001. Her name was Darla Stafford. When I guest-taught a class for her in...
Part Two: 1947-1962: 15 Years of Struggle for Team Machetanz
Our story thus far: Made a widow in a World War Two dirigible accident that killed her young Airman husband, Sara Burleson Dunn came to Alaska for a postwar vacation. In 1947 she wed Unalakleet children’s book author Frederick (Fred) Machetanz. By Hank Nuwer Fred and...
Second chance at love: Part I; Sara Burleson Dunn
by Hank Nuwer, Cordova Times Sara Burleson Dunn’s world came crashing down on May 16, 1944, when a U.S. naval air station dirigible slammed into a hangar on a training mission and plunged 258 feet to a concrete runway. The tragedy occurred at Lakehurst, New Jersey,...
Mudhole Smith Helped Feed Cordova in 1946
Last Frontier Tales By Hank Nuwer When a short list of 20th Century Alaskan legends is discussed, chances are Merle K. “Mudhole” Smith is somewhere up at the top of the heap. After all, the one-time barnstormer and bush pilot served as president of...
Polar Attraction: A Bear-Watching Trip to Utqiagvik
Last Frontier Days Polar Attraction: A Bear-Watching Trip to Utqiagvik (Polar bear photo by Gosia Nuwer) Review by Hank Nuwer (I've spliced together two different published newspaper stories, one from Cordova and one from Randolph County, IN--HN) Last weekend...