Since she spent years living in between New York City and Alaska, Joan Kane's poetry crisscrosses two vastly different worlds. In this video interview, she described how these two places influenced her new book, "The Cormorant Hunter's Wife."

Kane was one of the ten writers honored at the 25th annual Whiting Writers' Awards last week. GalleyCat prowled the aisles of the 2009 Whiting Awards, interviewing a number of the winners about their writing lives, the recession, and the future of literature. The ten recipients each took home a $50,000 award for their literary efforts.

Here's more about the author: "Kane is Irish and Inupiaq Eskimo, with family from King Island and Mary’s Igloo, Alaska. She earned her bachelor’s degree from Harvard College and her M.F.A. from Columbia University ... In 2009 her play, 'The Gilded Tusk,' won the Anchorage Museum theater contest."