Nicole Stellon O'Donnell

Nicole Stellon O'Donnell was born and raised on Chicago's South Side. In 1994, she moved to Fairbanks, Alaska, where she earned an MFA from the University of Alaska. She has lived in Alaska ever since. Her poems have appeared in Prairie Schooner, Beloit Poetry Journal, The Women's Review of Books, Ice Floe, Cirque, and other literary journals. Her nonfiction has appeared in the Anchorage Daily News and as commentaries for the Alaska Public Radio Network. She received an Individual Artist Award from the Rasmuson Foundation to support the writing of Steam Laundry.

Steam Laundry

Description:

Steam Laundry is a novel in poems based on the true story of Sarah Ellen Gibson, the sixth woman to arrive in Fairbanks, Alaska, in the gold rush of 1903. Incorporating persona, narrative, and lyric poems—as well as historical photographs and documents—to tell Gibson’s story, Steam Laundry offers the reader the chance to try on the dusty, mining-town overcoat of Gibson’s life.