Alita Putnam was born in Haines, Alaska, and did undergraduate work at Linfield College in Oregon before spending a year at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks. In 2008 she received an MFA from Penn State, and her memoir “Fisherman’s Daughter” won First Place in the 2008 N30B Story Contest. Putnam has taught English in Romania and Kyrgyzstan and now lives in Reykjavik, Iceland, where she’s pursuing a degree in medieval Icelandic studies.