Thomas McGuire’s novel Steller’s Orchid, published in June 2019 by Boreal Books, received a silver medal at the Independent Booksellers Awards in the category of Best Regional Fiction, West-Pacific. The book is set in Western Alaska in 1924 and tells the story of a young man’s quest for an orchid. The orchid was described by the naturalist Georg Wilhelm Stellerin a 1741 letter but was otherwise unknown. Steller’s Orchid can be purchased locally at…