Years ago, upon my first publication in Gray’s Sporting Journal, editor Jim Babb suggested I look up a friend of his in Anchor Point, Alaska. I was just starting out, and Jim thought my writing to be “windy.” He thought I could learn a thing or two from a seasoned writer who fixated about the same things I did, like working-class values and fishing trips that didn’t turn out quite right. He told me that Rich Chiappone lived in Anchor Point, and was a fabulous chef with Italian leanings. I had read Rich’s essays and short stories for years in Gray’s and elsewhere. His piece, “The Liar’s Code,” remains one of my favorite fishing essays. But I wasn’t about to bum-rush a guy on a trout stream who I didn’t even know, so I did the gentlemanly thing and signed up for a course on writing dialogue that Rich was teaching in Homer as part of the Kachemak Bay Writers’ Conference.
A two-time recipient of the Robert Traver Award, Rich has been publishing in fishing magazines for thirty years. You may know his stories and essays from places such as The Sun magazine, Gray’s, Midcurrent, Sporting Classics, even here in The Drake. He is one of those rare flyfishing writers who tells it like it is—has always told it like it is--even when the truth hurts. And unlike so many writers, Rich came to the craft late in life. A wallpaper guy by trade, he entered the University of Alaska when he was in his forties. Then he was accepted to the MFA program where the visiting professor, Tobias Wolff, took note of Rich’s ability and drive. Wolff encouraged Rich to send his work to national publications like Playboy, The New Yorker, and others. Wolff helped him land an agent. Before long, Rich began teaching creative writing classes at the university.
All of this might have seemed like a dream to a guy from Niagara
