2026 Maincrest Media Award
2025 First Place and Grand Prize for Book Cover, Chanticleer International Book Awards, Hearten Award for Uplifting and Inspiring Non-Fiction
2024 Gold Winner, Non-Fiction Book Awards
2024 Page Turner Awards Finalist, Best Debut Novel, Best Memoir, Best Cover
2024 The Book Fest Award, First Place, Professional Memoir
"A humorous, tender memoir" ~ Clarion Review
"Riveting!" ~ BookTrib Review
"Authentic and Immersive: A Thorough Fun." ~ Prairies Book Review
What happens when a young, hopeful teacher lands in a remote Inuit village, with a culture vastly different from her own? "Teaching in the Dark" is a heartfelt, humorous, and poignant story of a teacher challenged with no curriculum, no plumbing, and a lot of power outages, but who ultimately learns how to teach "from the heart" at the edge of the Chukchi Sea.
Teaching in the Dark chronicles Genet Simone's first year as a teacher in the Arctic village of Shishmaref, Alaska. Her stories are funny, reflective, and poignant. They reveal the inner life of teachers everywhere: the endless doubt and confusion, mixed with hope and aspiration.
This book is for teachers, both new and seasoned, who are looking for inspiration and confirmation of their hard, often thankless, work. It's for people who love adventures about self-exploration and the crazy complications inherent in trying to create relationships with people in different cultures. It's also a must-read for people who love the wild quirkiness of Alaska.
Hands down, you'll love this story by award-winning author Genet Simone, diving deep into the journey of a teacher's life and what it means to "make a difference"—not only in the lives of her students, but her own life as well.
"A beautifully written, amazing book. I loved it! If you're a teacher, you definitely should read it, because it's going to inspire you to wake up to more of who you are and can be in the classroom. This book even goes beyond just being a book for teachers. Someone once said to me there are only two things in the world that will change your life: the people you meet and the books you read. You're going to get both of those experiences when you read this book. Get a copy ... I promise you, you won't regret it." ~ Jack Canfield, Author of The Success Principles and Chicken Soup for the Soul series
