Jo-Ann Mapson, Ready for a Change, Hears Call of Wild From Alaska

Jo-Ann Mapson, the best-selling author of five novels, including “Hank & Chloe” and “The Wilder Sisters,” conducted her final Orange County book signing last week--at least it was her last signing as an Orange County resident.

Mapson is joining a handful of other notable Orange County authors--T. Jefferson Parker among the most recent--who have pulled up stakes over the past decade and moved out of the county. A Costa Mesa resident the past 21 years, Mapson and her artist husband, Stewart Allison, are moving north--way north--to Alaska.

“I fell in love with the state; I’ve been there four times in the last two years,” said Mapson, 48, who will move in June to Palmer (population 2,900), about 40 minutes east of Anchorage. “It’s right near the Chugach Mountains and the Knik River and there are glaciers. It’s just gorgeous.”

Mapson, who vacationed in Alaska with her aunt in 1969 when she was 17, made the first of her most recent trips in 1998 to do signings in Anchorage. Her visit coincided with the start of the 1,100-mile Iditarod sled-dog race.

“It was a peak experience--one of the top 10 of my life,” Mapson said of witnessing the hoopla surrounding the fabled race. She has since returned to Alaska for another book signing and “twice for pleasure--a ‘girlie adventure’ is what I call it.”

Mapson’s husband has quit his job as art director of an Anaheim sign company and plans to devote full time to painting in Alaska. Their 22-year-old son, Jack, is studying music at Monterey Peninsula College, but their four dogs will make the move with them.

Mapson said relocating to Alaska was a tough decision, but she was ready for a change. Did she think about it long?

“Me, forever; Stewart, I think a week,” she said with a laugh. “I took him with me to Alaska last September and I said, ‘What do you think of this place? Look at the mountains--it’s right up your alley.’ And he said, ‘Yeah, maybe we could move here.’ So I took him back in February and showed him the worst weather.”

Actually, she said, “It was a pretty mild winter; it was about 30 [degrees] when we were up there. I think the coldest it gets in February is minus 2, but that’s at night.”

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Mapson, who has set three of her novels in Orange County, said her decision to move was prompted, in part, by a desire to find renewed inspiration for her writing.

She recalls visiting the National Steinbeck Center in Salinas two years ago, just after returning from her first Alaskan trip, and seeing a note the aging author had written to his wife before setting out on his cross-country journey in a camper with his French poodle, Charley.

“It said he had to go find a new place for inspiration; otherwise he would lose his writing entirely. It really resonated with me.”

Mapson’s next novel, “A Year in Bad Girl Creek,” will be published by Simon and Schuster a year from now. Set on California’s Central Coast, it’s about four displaced women who come together to run a dilapidated flower farm.

It’s the first book in a trilogy featuring the four women. Mapson is already writing the second and researching the third, which, she said, will be set in Alaska.

Mapson and her husband plan to rent a house in Palmer for a year and then, she said, they’ll decide whether they want to buy or build. But Mapson will be back in Orange County in October to teach a three-day writing workshop for a Cal State Fullerton extension class.

Mapson’s book signing at a Borders Books in Costa Mesa last week marked the publication of the paperback version of “The Wilder Sisters,” her 1999 novel that hit the Los Angeles Times bestseller list.

She shared the signing with her friend Earlene Fowler of Fountain Valley, one of her former writing students at Orange Coast College, where Mapson was a part-time instructor for 11 years. Fowler, Mapson proudly noted, recently won an Agatha Award for “Mariner’s Compass,” the sixth book in her Benny Harper mystery series.

Mapson also mentioned that one of her former UC Irvine extension writing students, Joyce Weatherford of Laguna Beach, just had her first novel, “Harvest,” accepted by Scribner’s and Sons. “I’m thrilled for them,” she said. “It’s the best part of teaching, when one of them gets any kind of success.”

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Though she’s moving to Alaska, Mapson will maintain her Orange County presence as a creative-writing instructor: She’ll be teaching on-line for Cal State Fullerton.

Mapson’s students will e-mail their manuscripts to her. She’ll read and critique them, then she and her students will meet at least once a week in an on-line chat room. “I can work in my jammies,” she said.

Mapson’s already experienced “cross-country skiing in virgin snow” in Alaska, photographed wildflowers in Hatcher Pass, seen her first moose and bear in Denali Park and watched a farmer in the Matanuska Valley plowing his field while, in the field next to him, “a hundred Sandhill cranes fed on something in the ultra-green grass.”

10 Poets to Battle in Slam Team Finals

Ten poets will compete in the Laguna Beach National Poetry Slam Team Finals on Friday. When the dust clears, the four winners can start packing for the National Poetry Slam to be held in Providence, R.I. in August.

Team members, who will represent Orange County, will have paid their dues. They will have survived five qualifying rounds with about 60 other contestants. The qualifying rounds began in February and were hosted by the Pale Ale Poets reading series in Laguna Beach and held at the Laguna Beach Brewing Co.

Poet Lee Mallory, who will serve as host, said the Laguna finals are one of the county’s largest annual poetry events, generating a crowd of 200 last year.

“Part of the evening is to raise money for the team,” he said. “It costs approximately $3,000 to send a team of four to Providence.”

Mallory said a poetry slam is judged by five judges, randomly chosen on the spot, who use a 10-point system. There will be two rounds, with each poet receiving three minutes on stage.

“It’s a highly competitive, often spontaneous recitation of personal and previously unpublished work that has strong dramatic appeal to a nonprofessional audience and judges who might walk in off the street,” Mallory said.

Finalists are: Derrick Brown, Jim Dobson, Buzzy Enniss, John Gardiner, J.D. Glasscock, Jaimes Palacio, Steve Ramirez, Tatiana Simonian, Paul Suntup and David Watson.

The slam will be at 7:30 p.m. Friday at The FACT Gallery, 30912 Pacific Coast Highway, Laguna Beach. Admission is $5. (949) 499-8300.

Also Coming Up

* Kent McArthur will discuss and sign “How to Be Happy, Healthy, Wealthy and Wise: The Guide to Taking Control of Your Life” at Borders Books and Music in South Coast Plaza, 3333 Bear St., Costa Mesa. 7:30 p.m. Tuesday. (714) 432-7854.

* Robert Crais (“L.A. Requiem,” “Demolition Angel”) will speak and read at the Newport Beach Central Library, 1000 Avocado Ave. 7 p.m. Wednesday. Free. (949) 717-3801.

* Steve Nakamoto will sign “Men Are Like Fish” at Barnes & Noble in Metro Pointe, 901 South Coast Drive, Costa Mesa. 7 p.m. Wednesday. (714) 444-0226.

* Barbara DeMarco Barrett will interview Peter Gadol (“Light at Dusk”) on “Writers on Writing” on KUCI (88.9-FM) in Irvine. 4 p.m. Thursday.

* Beth Caswell, who bills herself as the mystery maven, will host a fireside tea talk with Bob Chaffee, who will lecture on the infamous Lizzie Borden case, at the Best of Times, 814 Electric Ave., Seal Beach. 6:30 p.m. Thursday. $16. Reservations required. (562) 431-3392.

* Patricia Rust will read and sign her children’s literacy book, “The King of Skittledeedoo,” at Barnes & Noble, 26751 Aliso Creek Road, Aliso Viejo. 11 a.m. Saturday. (949) 362-8027.

* Shirley Carroll O’Connor, a former circus press agent, will sign “Life Is a Circus” at Borders Books and Music, 25222 El Paseo, Mission Viejo. 3 p.m. Saturday. (949) 367-0005.

* Debra Dixon, author of “Goal, Motivation and Conflict,” will present a one-day workshop for writers on plot problems and solutions at the Sheraton Four Points Hotel, 1500 S. Raymond Ave., Fullerton. 9 a.m. Saturday. $50, lunch not included. Sponsored by the Orange County chapter of Romance Writers of America. Reservations: (909) 898-9949.

* Numerologist Glynis McCants will discuss and sign “Glynis Has Your Number” at Coffee, Tea & Mystery, 11931 Valley View St., Garden Grove. 2 p.m. Saturday. (714) 898-2583.

* Author Suzanne Forster (“The Morning After”) will discuss writing the romantic thriller at the National Writers Assn. meeting at the Claim Jumper restaurant, 18050 Brookhurst St., Fountain Valley. 10 a.m. Saturday. $18 (includes lunch) for prepaid members; $10 for first-time guests. Reservations: (562) 431-7795.

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Send information about book-related events at least 10 days before event to: Dennis McLellan, O.C. Books & Authors, The Times’ Orange County edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626. Or e-mail to dennis.mclellan@latimes.com.