You might have heard of Blair Braverman, as her work has appeared on Buzzfeed, Literary Hub, This American Life, and The Best Women’s Travel Writing.

Her first book, Welcome to the Goddamn Ice Cube, journeys to extreme environments and explores the different kinds of fear-physical, emotional, practical-that Blair faces.

In this episode, Blair reads some passages and answers questions about her lifelong love of the cold, her beginnings as a writer, and her old obsession with the phrase “tough girl.”

About Welcome to the Goddamn Ice Cube:

Blair Braverman fell in love with the North at an early age: By the time she was nineteen, she had left her home in California, moved to Norway to learn how to drive sled dogs, and worked as a tour guide on a glacier in Alaska. By turns funny and sobering, bold and tender, Welcome to the Goddamn Ice Cube charts Blair’s endeavor to become a “tough girl”—someone who courts danger in an attempt to become fearless. Brilliantly original and bracingly honest, Welcome to the Goddamn Ice Cube captures the triumphs and the perils of the journey to self-discovery and independence in a landscape that is as beautiful as it is unforgiving.

 

Recorded at Magers and Quinn Booksellers on July 14, 2016.