East Anchorage Book Club with Andrew Gray

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Author Dan O'Neill has lived in Fairbanks for 50 years. During that time he has published editorials and op-eds in all of Alaska's major newspapers. From 1998 to 2002, he had a weekly column in the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner. He compiled his best work from his almost half century of newspaper work into his most recent book, The Impertinent Question: the Words & Adventures of a Liberal Columnist at a Conservative Newspaper in the Red State of Alaska. Today we are talking about that book. He is also the author of The Firecracker Boys, A...

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The third part of a legislative audit of the Alaska Office of Children's Services (OCS) was made public on June 30, 2025. In 2018 an omnibus bill was signed into law that completely overhauled the way foster care in Alaska should work. That bill -- House Bill 151 -- passed the Alaska State House and the Alaska State Senate unanimously. The completed audit shows that OCS failed to implement most of the required reforms.

Les Gara was the 2022 democratic candidate for governor of Alaska. He is a former legislator who served in the...

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James Brooks is a reporter for the Alaska Beacon. James is a longtime Alaska journalist, having previously worked at the Anchorage Daily News, Juneau Empire, Kodiak Mirror and the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner -- although as we will learn today initially more as an editor than as a journalist. He has laid down roots in Juneau where he and his wife and young daughter live, and he was content in his role as the ADN's chief Capitol reporter when three years ago he embarked on what he describes as "an experiment" at...

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Larry Persily is the Anchorage-based owner and publisher of the weekly newspaper the Wrangell Sentinel. Larry and his wife Leslie Murray first purchased that newspaper in 1976 when they moved to Wrangell from Chicago. After almost 50 years as an on-again off-again journalist at various publications such as the Anchorage Times, the Associated Press, the Juneau Empire, & the Anchorage Daily News, Larry re-purchased the Wrangell Sentinel in 2021.

In 2019 he purchased the newspaper in Skagway, Alaska, and then offered to give away the Skagway News instead of running it remotely...

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President and publisher of the Anchorage Daily News Ryan Binkley is the oldest son of former state Senator John Binkley (R-Bethel). When John ran for governor in 2006, Ryan, at 27, took over the Binkley family tourism business based in Fairbanks. That business includes the Riverboat Discovery, a gold mining tour, a partnership with a flight seeing company in Girdwood & Juneau, and a cruise port in Ketchikan. In 2017, Ryan and his three younger siblings purchased the Anchorage Daily News, the state’s largest newspaper. Ryan talks about the media landscape in Al...

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Open Enrollment is an education priority of Gov. Dunleavy that would allow any Alaska student to enroll in any Alaska school. To better understand the consequences of this proposal, Sen. Bill Wielechowski, the rules chair in the Alaska State Senate, and Rep. Rebecca Himschoot, the co-chair of the House Education committee appear in this brief bonus episode.

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Nathaniel Herz is a freelance reporter who’s spent over a decade working in Alaska, including stints at the Anchorage Daily News and Alaska Public Media. A few years ago he started his own newsletter "Northern Journal," where he is supported by individual subscribers and grant funding to do his own projects in collaboration with various media organizations like ProPublica, the ADN, and Alaska Public Media. He also has a podcast called "Northern Journal." 

Nat is on the show today because he wanted to provide a counter perspective to the...

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Sen. Bill Wielechowski (D-Anchorage) is chair of the rules committee in the Alaska State Senate. He discusses the upcoming legislative special session called by Governor Mike Dunleavy to begin at 10 am, on Saturday, August 2. Sen Wielechowski explains the way special sessions generally work, why this one is different, and discusses frankly the political gamesmanship given that overrides of the Governor's vetoes must be taken up within the first 5 days of the legislature reconvening. We discuss the budget line item veto of education funding but also Senate Bill 183 which...

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 Gabe Rottman is the Vice President of Policy for the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. A practicing attorney with a focus on the novel issues at the intersection of press freedom, newsgathering, and technology, Gabe is the perfect person to discuss the media environment in America today and what resources are available to journalists who, through the course of just doing their jobs, could find themselves in the crosshairs of the government.

From 2012 to 2015, Rottman served as the lead federal legislative and regulatory counsel at the American C...

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Former editor of the Anchorage Daily News Pat Dougherty worked at that paper for 34 years. Born in 1950 as the eldest son of an Air Force pilot father, Pat never found a long term home till he landed in Anchorage in 1975 to take a job as a sports reporter at the Anchorage Times. Once transferring over to the ADN in 1980, he worked his way up the ranks and was the editor of the series that won the 1989 Pulitzer Prize. The ADN has won the Pulitzer Prize Gold Medal for Public Service three...

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This interview was originally published in March of 2023.

Anchorage born Representative Genevieve Mina talks about growing up as part of a unique family business and how those experiences helped her when challenged with her own childhood trauma.  She also touches on forging her own professional path against cultural norms.  

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This episode originally aired in March of 2023.

Will Stapp tells of his childhood being raised by his grandparents, going to war in Iraq and moving to Alaska to raise a family and ultimately become a member of the Alaska House of Representatives.

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Journalist Tom Hewitt is the former opinions editor of the Anchorage Daily News from 2018 to 2024. He previously was editorial page editor of the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner and news director of KTVF and KXDF in Fairbanks. He is currently special assistant to Fairbanks North Star Borough Mayor Grier Hopkins. 

This interview is part of a series regarding the media landscape in Alaska in 2025.

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Dr. Mara Kimmel is the Executive Director of the ACLU of Alaska and former first lady of Anchorage. Prior to taking the helm of the ACLU of Alaska, She had a long career in Alaska public policy focused on rights and justice in northern communities. She has served on the faculty at the Seattle University School of Law, the University of Alaska Anchorage and Alaska Pacific University.

Most relevant to our conversation today, Dr. Kimmel worked for over a decade as an immigration attorney and as an advocate for...

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Rose O’Hara-Jolley is the Alaska State Director for Planned Parenthood Alliance Advocates. Planned Parenthood is a network of 600 health clinics across the country -- Alaska has two (one in Fairbanks and one in Anchorage) --  that provide reproductive and sexual health care including birth control, sexually transmitted infection testing and treatment, cancer screenings, well-woman exams and mental health care.  Planned Parenthood is the only provider of abortions in Alaska. Planned Parenthood Alliance Advocates is separate from the health care clinics; it is an advocacy organization tasked with keeping the Planned Pare...

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 JJ Harrier is the 2025 chair of the Anchorage Pride Parade. After a childhood in Girdwood, he traveled around the lower 48 and Europe trying to find himself ultimately ending up homeless on the streets of Portland in his early 30s. His mother got him into rehab in Alaska and from there his life took a different direction. JJ is the former Vice President of Marketing for the Anchorage Chamber of Commerce, the former Director of Development for Alaska Addiction Rehabilitation Services at Nugent’s Ranch, and is currently the Director of Development at D...

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Alaska State House Representative for Downtown Anchorage Zack Fields explains the budget reconciliation bill recently passed in the US House by a single vote. That bill is now in the US Senate, where if it is not substantially amended, it would adversely affect Alaska in many ways. One is cutting funding for SNAP – which is the federal food stamp program.  About 70,000 Alaskans receive SNAP benefits. The bill would also significantly affect Medicaid – which is government health insurance for low-income people and families. About 250,000 Alaskans are enrolled in Medicaid. The bill offers signi...

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Tessa Hulls is the 2025 Pulitzer prize winner for her graphic  memoir Feeding Ghosts. Tessa is only the second graphic novelist to be awarded a Pulitzer Prize, the first being Art Speigleman for Maus in 1992. Tessa was kitchen staff for this past legislative session in Juneau. She worked in the legislative lounge every day making legislators' breakfasts and lunches. No one knew she was an author and certainly no one expected the woman serving us our soup to be announced as the 2025 Pulitzer Prize winner. 

We discuss her incognito lounge st...

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Alaska State House Representative for South Anchorage, Girdwood & Whittier Ky Holland was born and raised in Anchorage. He is the eldest son of Federal Judge Russ Holland who was the judge in the case against Exxon after the Exxon Valdez Oil spill. Ky left Alaska for college in Oregon and stayed away for over a decade. Returning in the late 90s, he continued his work as a mechanical engineer, but expanded into academia and eventually into entrepreneurship. Lack of state investment in the private sector has motivated his legislation...

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Alaska State House Representative for West Anchorage Carolyn Hall got an internship with the Boston Red Sox during her senior year of college in New Hampshire. This led to her dream job working for the team as a videographer during their World Series win in 2004. In 2008 she branched into TV journalism getting her first job with a small local market: KTUU in Anchorage. She covered the Iditarod, Gov. Sarah Palin, Sen. Ted Stevens' trial from DC, and Sen. Lisa Murkowski's 2010 write-in...

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Former Alaska State Senator and Iraq war veteran Josh Revak was born and raised in Minnesota. While serving in the Army in the early 2000s, a mortar blast in Iraq blew a quarter-sized hole through the back of his foot. He then got his first job in politics back in Minnesota working on John McCain's 2008 presidential campaign. Then, while visiting the Alaska family of a fellow soldier who had been killed in Iraq, Revak met Congressman Don Young's staff who suggested he apply for a...

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Deko Harbi, Shannon Smith, and Tali Stone are former Alaska foster youth. All three recently visited the Capitol in Juneau as part of a trip organized by Facing Foster Care in Alaska. Facing Foster Care in Alaska is a nonprofit organization that provides foster youth and alumni opportunities to share their lived experience about life in foster care to raise community awareness and promote improvements in the system. This is this podcast’s third episode featuring former foster youth; the first from 2023 was with FFCA co-founder Am...