Kit Bakke

Thirty-six of the most interesting writers in the Pacific Northwest came together for a week-long marathon of writing live on stage. The result? Hotel Angeline, a truly inventive novel that surprises at every turn of the page.Something is amiss at the Hotel Angeline, a rickety former mortuary perched atop Capitol Hill in rain-soaked Seattle. Fourteen-year-old Alexis Austin is fixing the plumbing, the tea, and all the problems of the world, it seems, in her landlady mother’s absence.The quirky tenants—a hilarious mix of misfits and rabble-rousers from days gone by—rely on Alexis all the more when they discover a plot to sell the Hotel. Can Alexis save their home? Find her real father? Deal with her surrogate dad’s dicey past? Find true love? Perhaps only their feisty pet crow, Habib, truly knows.Provoking interesting questions about the creative process, this novel is by turns funny, scary, witty, suspenseful, beautiful, thrilling, and unexpected.

The Seattle 7 embodied late 1960s counterculture--young, idealistic, active organizers against racism and the Vietnam War, and fond of long hair, rock'n'roll, sex, drugs, and parties. In January 1970 they founded the Seattle Liberation Front (SLF). Nationally, the FBI was using tactics such as wiretapping, warrantless break-ins, and the placing of informers and provocateurs to destroy organizations like the SLF. But in Seattle, it went a step further.After a protest at Seattle's downtown federal building turned violent, seven SLF leaders--Michael Abeles, Jeff Dowd, Joe Kelly, Michael Lerner, Roger Lippman, Chip Marshall, and Susan Stern--faced federal conspiracy and intent to riot indictments. Their chaotic trial became a crash course in the real American judicial system. Carl Maxey and Michael Tigar led the defense team; the U.S. prosecuting attorney was Stan Pitkin. When Pitkin's key witness faltered and the government's case appeared doomed, the presiding judge issued a surprise ruling to end the trial and send the defendants to prison.For this solidly researched oral history, the author conducted dozens of interviews with defendants, attorneys, FBI agents, jurors, and others. She also accessed the trial transcript, appeals briefs and depositions, media articles, books, and more.

A young adult novel of loss, travel, healing and adventureTwelve year-old Dot is spunky and full of zest for life, but after her mother's sudden and senseless death, she finds herself dancing on the edge...of everything. With all familiar anchors swept away, Dot is propelled with her offbeat aunt on an international voyage of curiosity...and maybe even time travel. With a little help from Jane Austen, Mary Shelley, and other trailblazing ladies of literature, Dot's trip to England becomes anything but predictable. Pack your bags for a memorable, powerful journey into life in the wake of profound loss, as our young heroine discovers the meaning of her past, and of her mother's greatest gift to her. "A wonderful and endearing story about the power of books and travel to heal us. ...A perfect mother-daughter book."--Jim Lynch, author of national bestseller The Highest Tide

Shouldn't life be more than simply showing up? Is it enough to be part of a family, make another family, earn your living, and then exit stage left? Or should you engage and be engaged in a bit of purposeful shaking and shoving along the way? These are questions that Kit Bakke urgently needs answered. Tired of self-proclaimed gurus and self-help books, she turns to her childhood role model—Louisa May Alcott—for direction. She sends an e-mail to Louisa, and is amazed when she receives a reply. Their correspondence becomes a dance of ideas and tales bridging the mid-1800s and the twenty-first century. But why Louisa? Her abolitionist zeal, her women's rights advocacy, her hospital work, her crazy commune days, her heartfelt desire to leave the world a better place, her humor and her energy all materialized in front of me, writes Bakke. Louisa was serious when she signed her letters, 'Yours for reforms of all kinds.' She made her life, she didn't just live it.

Shouldn't life be more than simply showing up? Is it enough to be part of a family, make another family, earn your living, and then exit stage left? Or should you engage and be engaged in a bit of purposeful shaking and shoving along the way? These are questions that Kit Bakke urgently needs answered. Tired of self-proclaimed gurus and self-help books, she turns to her childhood role model—Louisa May Alcott—for direction. She sends an e-mail to Louisa, and is amazed when she receives a reply. Their correspondence becomes a dance of ideas and tales bridging the mid-1800s and the twenty-first century. But why Louisa? Her abolitionist zeal, her women's rights advocacy, her hospital work, her crazy commune days, her heartfelt desire to leave the world a better place, her humor and her energy all materialized in front of me, writes Bakke. Louisa was serious when she signed her letters, 'Yours for reforms of all kinds.' She made her life, she didn't just live it.