Both are great, engaging pieces…you have the gift of storytelling, my dear.

My only stumbling blocks in both excerpts were a couple of stylistic ones ie. commas or semi-colons or sentences that made me read twice such as…Jacob quickly stripped to nothing, hung his clothes on a peg. I wanted to add a “then” before hung because it didn’t feel congruent…is that the right word?

But I agree with you on the dialogue thing – I don’t think it’s always necessary to do the he said/she said thing – at some points it is obvious who is speaking and at other points, perhaps not as much, such as the end of your dialogue string, where at first blush, it could have been either Jacob or the shaman questioning him but the final statement makes it obvious that it was the shaman so I think you handled it nicely.

I’m not sure if you’ve thought too far into the future but you should look into Alaska literary agents and submissions to see if there are publishers who deal primarily with Alaska fiction. Not to mention State awards for new Alaska writing.

Seriously, thanks. And good observation on the mechanics of dialogue. I try not to overdo “he said, she said” and at the same time, I do need to use it when necessary to orient the reader.