WINTER FISHTRAP GATHERING 2009 Feb 20-22

WINTER FISHTRAP GATHERING 2009

Registrations are now open for the 2009 Winter Fishtrap Gathering, on February 20-22, 2009 at Wallowa Lake, Oregon. The theme for this 18th annual Gathering is "Re-imagining the Wild," and all are welcome: readers, writers, and anyone interested in wilderness. For more details, an agenda, photos, and registration info, go to http://fishtrap.org/winter.shtml. Note that you can spare yourself driving by taking the FISHTRAP BUS, available from Portland and points along the I-84 corridor.

This year Fishtrap has invited three presenters who have not only written lucidly and compellingly about wildness and our connection – or lack of connection – to it, but who have all dug deep – with a paddle in whitewater, for razor clams at low tide, to lead the next pitch on a dangerous climb – and have experienced that connection personally and viscerally.

Kathleen Dean Moore is an essayist best known for her books about wet, wild places -- Riverwalking, Holdfast, and The Pine Island Paradox. Her essays can be found in journals that include Orion, Audubon, The New York Times Magazine, and Discover. She is the recipient of the Pacific Northwest Bookseller's Association Book Award, the Oregon Book Award, and the Sigurd Olson Nature Writing Award. Kathleen is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at Oregon State University, where she directs the Spring Creek Project for Ideas, Nature, and the Written Word.

Although he has written ten books and over 150 essays, Roderick Nash is best known for Wilderness and the American Mind, first published in 1967, with a quarter-million copies sold. Outside magazine listed it as one of the "Ten Books That Changed Our World." A national leader in the field of environmental history, management, and education, Dr. Nash has won numerous awards, including a Distinguished Achievement Award from the Western Literature Association, has been a frequent expert witness for land management agencies, and has appeared in several film documentaries. He became one of the nation’s first professional river guides in 1957, and has run more than 40,000 river miles, including over 50 runs of the Grand Canyon.

Jack Turner’s book of environmental essays, The Abstract Wild, is now in its fifth printing and is used by more than 50 colleges. He has also written a memoir of the Tetons, Teewinot: A Year in the Teton Range, and Travels in the Greater Yellowstone. A philosophy professor, Turner has lectured at the universities of Montana, Utah, Puget Sound, and Illinois, at Carleton College and Whitman College, and for a variety of other institutions including Greenpeace, the Murie Center, the Teton Science School, and the Wharton School of Finance Leadership Program. He has led more than 40 expeditions to Pakistan, India, China, Tibet, Nepal, Bhutan, and Peru, climbed in Wyoming’s Teton Range for 47 years, and is president of the Exum Mountain Guides and School of American Mountaineering in Grand Teton National Park.

Winter Fishtrap is held at Wallowa Lake Lodge. Registration opens on December 2, 2008, and attendance is limited to 60 people. Charter bus transportation is available from Portland and the I-84 corridor. Visit http://fishtrap.org/winter.shtml, or contact Fishtrap at 541-426-3623 orinfo@fishtrap.org.

FELLOWSHIPS FOR SUMMER FISHTRAP 2009

Fishtrap will award up to five Fellowships, valued at $1,000 each, to attend the 2009 Summer Fishtrap Workshops and Gathering, to be held July 5-12, 2009 at Wallowa Lake. The Fellowships include workshop fee, food, lodging, and a partial travel stipend. There are no subject restrictions, but submissions should follow the Fishtrap mission, which is to promote "good writing in and about the West." Applicants should be from the West, or writing about the West. Submit up to eight pages of poetry or 2,500 words of prose and a half-page biography byJanuary 31, 2009. There is no entry fee. For complete submission guidelines visit http://www.fishtrap.org/fellows.shtml