September 15, 2026
From “The Sun” review by Carl Rollyson:
After the first two paragraphs of Marcia Biederman’s riveting biography that reads like a mystery story, you may well be “hooked” too . . . When I say the story is symbolic, I mean it is about more than one person, more than about discrimination and prejudice and racial violence, or about the aftermath of the Klondike gold rush. It is above all a story about displacement and the disorienting divide between cultures and communities that Agnes is able to sometimes surmount and that sometimes overcomes her.
To read the entire review, click here
September 5, 2026
I was immensely pleased to be interviewed by the Ketchikan (AK) Daily News for a feature about my latest book, Attic Wife: The Shocking Case of Agnes Young McAlpin. A number of descendants of Agnes and her brothers still live in Southeast Alaska, the setting of many events in my book.
The Ketchikan Daily News appears in print as well as online. I remember seeing it around town in supermarkets and at people’s homes. I’m grateful that the paper is spreading word of the book to the region where Agnes grew up in the Haida culture, and where she fled for safety after suffering years of abuse at her white husband’s home in Pennsylvania.
Link to GoogleDrive printout of the article: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1wCVjlUQyfw6Hm9KmEMDGEDl-pEFx3hlr/view?usp=sharing
August 10, 2026
Link to the episode about Attic Wife: https://bit.ly/4y8pSgK
It was my great pleasure to be interviewed by Ronan Rooney, creator of the award-winning podcast, “Wrangell History Unlocked,” which was an invaluable source for my research. Ronan generously let me tell Agnes Young McAlpin’s story to his many followers, asking questions that kept me on my toes: he really knows the history of Wrangell, where many of the events in my books took place. As I told him, I am overwhelmed by the generosity and hospitality that Alaskan historians and history enthusiasts have extended to me, an outsider living in New York City.
I also loved the photos that Ronan interspersed in our video interview. In my writing, I refer several times to the Wrangell YMCA and the events it sponsored around 1898, but I’d never seen a picture of it. I was also touched to see a photo of the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis, where, as I wrote, Agnes’s uncle, John Baronovich, installed the totem poles and Haida clan house from Old Kasaan, Prince of Wales Island, AK, which he’d contributed to the Alaska pavilion.
July 20, 2026
WBAI 99.5 FM New York radio host Marianne Pizzitola talked to me about my newest nonfiction book, Attic Wife: The Shocking Case of Agnes Young McAlpin. The interview starts here at the 17:56 mark.
We had a spirited 20-minute conversation about the importance of this and other untold stories about courageous American women. I also had a chance to mention the many other people involved in making this book possible, including an anthropologist, an archaeologist, family historians who have saved letters written by Agnes McAlpin for 120 years, and, most of all, Agnes’s Haida and Tlingit descendants, who welcomed me into their home and honored me with their trust, cooperation, and encouragement.
