The front cover of Heather's second book, "Take Good Care of the Garden and the Dogs."

Your inspiration and your subjects are your family, friends and neighbors, those who live around you in a small, geographically isolated Alaska town. What's it like to write about the people with whom you volunteer at the hospice, sit on local boards, meet in the grocery store, and pray at church?

Well ... it's just my life. I have been writing about Haines for a long time now. In addition to writing obituaries for the local paper, I've told stories from Haines on National Public Radio, in The Christian Science Monitor and in a long-running Anchorage newspaper column. Because of our isolation, though, not a lot of my neighbors knew about my writing beyond Haines's own Chilkat Valley News. When I was working on my first book, "If You Lived Here, I'd Know Your Name," one of my colleagues on the school board thought I was joking when I said I couldn't make a committee meeting because I was writing a book and had a deadline that day. Since the book was published, people are obviously much more aware. I hear, "This is not for publication" a lot, and that's fine. At the same time, one elderly woman told me it was too bad her husband hadn't died sooner, because then he could have been in "If You Lived Here," which was largely based on the obituaries I write in Haines. I'm also very mindful of what I should say and not say. The line I usually draw, especially in this book (which was harder than the last one in that these stories are more intimate), is that if I'm at a public event -- a funeral for 400 in the local theater or the community Veteran's Day dinner where a letter from a soldier is read aloud, then I feel free to use that material. I am careful to present stories as my interpretation of events: This is how it moved me and why. Also, since my time at The Monitor, I've always tried to hold to that paper's editorial guideline, which is "To injure no man but bless all mankind." But I wrestle with this everyday.

Is there a "Heather Lende The Writer" persona, separate from "Heather Lende Going about her Daily Living or her Otherwise-Scheduled-Life"'?

Yes and no. My husband says no, but I know that my writer voice is my best and most polite self. In real life I swear more.

Do you arrive at a community function eager for good material, with an active ear to the ground. And do you ever hope to head out of the house without tripping over a new subject?

I can't help myself. I always have a pen and paper in my pocket, and often end up writing on napkins, basketball game programs, and even the church leaflet. Not all of that ends up being printed though. Much of it is still in a pile on my desk. And, yes, I sometimes I wish I lived in a place where I didn't know everyone, but so far, I haven't ever wished that there were less going on or that my life here were less ... involving. One of the reasons my husband Chip and I chose to raise our family in Haines is for that very reason -- we wanted to be truly connected to a community, with whatever entanglements and responsibilities that entails.

The book is subtitled "Friends, Family, and Faith in Small-town Alaska." How religious are you?