It is a state-wide scandal. Native Alaskan women suffer an extreme rate of sexual abuse. Yet Native Alaskan women hold the culture together. How do these brave and gritty women reinvent themselves and Native traditions, from the inside, from within themselves? This is the story of Dee Beans, a village girl who incorporates her life and her art, working on a vision of the new ways. This is Sitka Song, a Novel of Alaska.

If you are thinking about visiting Sitka, Alaska, this is Sitka's story. You can not view the scenery and the town without wanting to imagine the life, passions and struggles of Sitka. This novel is your window into Sitka. If you remember Sitka Song while you are seeing the sights, you will experience Sitka with depth and with authenticity. This story of the Alaskan Native girl, Dee Beans, and her growth from a village life of drunken abuse, to her attainment of a renewal in Native art. Her undaunted courage and creativity resonate both in her personal life and her artist's awakening.

Some of you will recognize this as an extensive rewrite of Some Go Out Singing, a novella-length piece published a few years ago in An Alaskan Trilogy. Re-written, it expanded from about 150 to 340 pages. This story of Dee Beans, her romantic and not very romantic entanglements, and her personal progress from village girl to a an artist among artists, depicts Sitka and Alaska in terms ranging from the endearing to the shocking. I have tried to show this town that I love in some of its full range of truths, from splendid to shadowy.