For nearly fifteen years, writer and musician Ken Waldman has been touring as Alaska's Fiddling Poet, combining old-time Appalachian-style string-band music with original poetry and Alaska storytelling. "D is for Dog Team" is his first children's book, a collection of poems, songs, and illustrations that is sure to delight kids of all ages. A companion volume, "D is for Denali", aimed at older children and teens, comes with the book; the resulting package will be a fireside treasure for the whole family.

Ken Waldman has toured throughout North America as Alaska's Fiddling Poet since 1995. He is the author of six poetry collections and has released seven CDs. This, his first book of prose, is part memoir, part travel notes, and part artist how-to. A Blue Highways for 2009. "Ken's story is all our stories, collected and distilled by a roving poet/musician possessed of a clear eye and a big heart. Waldman is clearly in the tradition of Walt Whitman, Woody Guthrie, John Steinbeck, Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Ken Kesey." --Jim Clark, author of Handiwork, Dancing on Canaan's Ruins, and Notions: A Jim Clark Miscellany and Jordan Professor of Southern Literature and Writer in Residence, Barton College, Wilson NC. "A great read. For those who've wondered what it's like to live a life on the road in pursuit of one's passion, here's your book. Those who already know what it's like can point and say, 'It's like this.' From the harrowing plane crash in Alaska all the way to the appearance at Kennedy Center stage, we feel like we're there." --Jeff Talmadge, CoraZong Records recording artist, internationally touring singer/songwriter.

"Full of poems that stand alone as consummate accomplishments, Conditions and Cures nevertheless coheres as a book about life-and-death verities, strategies for survival or triumph or at least coping gracefully. The comic is one of those strategies, and Ken Waldman is often at his most hilarious when he's addressing subjects another poet might murder with solemnity. In addition, he frequently engages with demanding forms like pantoums, villanelles, sestinas and sonnets, submitting to their guidance but never losing his independence. The secret of such a trick is his ear: a professional musician, Waldman swears final allegiance to the body of our language, its sonorities and rhythms, to its possibilities as song-a co-strategy with the comic." -Philip Dacey