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Trail Mix Journal

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A Trail is More than a Route

The Trail Mix Journal is a collection of creative writing celebrating the trails of the KMTA National Heritage Area.
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A trail can feel different every time you travel it, offering new discoveries, familiar comforts, and experiences that stay with you long after you return home. We invite anyone with a passion for writing and a love of trails to share a story. Your piece can spotlight a single trail, a memorable moment along the way, or experiences gathered across many trails in the region.

Published on our website for all to enjoy, these personal accounts offer a chance to experience the region’s historic and deeply loved trails through one another’s footsteps. We hope they inspire readers to connect to new paths and take a moment to savor what makes these spaces so treasured.

We welcome stories of established trails, unmarked routes, and any walk in the wild. Whether you’re a seasoned writer or simply have a story to tell, we’d love to hear from you.

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Latest Trail Mix Journal Entries

Read All Trail Mix Journal Entries
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Submission Guidelines:

Helpful Tips

As far as style and structure, we encourage you to find your own way. Forming a literary trail guide, these personal essays and poems with invite readers to travel in another’s muddy shoes. To experience the trail through the writer’s senses.

Here are some optional prompts to get you thinking, even though you’re already starting down the trail in your mind—rain pattering on leaves, fresh tracks in snow, a spruce grouse around the bend in the dusty sun:

  • The trail is the main character.
  • The trail is a living thing.
  • The same trail is different every time you hike it.
Details and Word Count
  • Trail-related essays and poetry alike are welcome!
  • 1,000 words is the suggested word count, but we welcome submissions of any length.
  • Please submit 2-10 photos or pieces of visual art to accompany your words. Editors will make final decisions on which images to include.
How to Submit a Piece

To submit a story or poem for consideration, start by contacting Trail Mix Journal Creator and Editor Sean Ulman at seanulman@gmail.com about your idea. You don’t need to have a finished piece before reaching out. Sean will work with you on editing and finalizing your work for publishing. Once it is in final form, you can submit your story and corresponding photos using the link below.

Submit Final Stories Here
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Sean Ulman

Meet Trail Mix Journal Creator and Editor

We are proud to bring this series to life in partnership with Sean Ulman, the creator and editor of the Trail Mix Journal. Sean lives in Seward, Alaska and is the author of the novel Seward Soundboard (Cirque Press 2020). He hosts a radio show featuring local writers reading their work live on the air called Seward Sound Words (91.7 KIBH FM).

A founding member of the Seward Writers Collective, Ulman grew up in Massachusetts and fell for hiking in Bar Harbor Maine’s Acadia National Park. When people ask him how he ended up in Alaska, he says, “The trails. And the birds.”

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