Spring Creek Project

Ellen Waterston (Blue River Fellow) is a poet, author and literary arts advocate. She is the author of Vía Láctea: A Woman of a Certain Age Walks the Camino, Where the Crooked River Rises, and a memoir, Then There Was No Mountain, which was rated one of the top ten books of 2003 by the Oregonian and a WILLA finalist. After eleven years as founder/director of The Nature of Words, a literary arts nonprofit, she passed the baton in 2012 to focus on the Writing Ranch, the Waterston Desert Writing Prize and her writing. Founded by Waterston in 2000, the Writing Ranch offers writing workshops and retreats. The Waterston Desert Writing Prize, established in 2014, is awarded annually each June to nonfiction projects concerning deserts anywhere in the world. Waterston is completing a fourth collection of poetry, and is at work on nonfiction examining land use issues in the high desert.

Courtney Carlson (Long-Term Ecological Reflections) is a writer and Assistant Professor at the Haub School of Environment and Natural Resources. She has studied at both Boston College and Mansfield College, and currently resides in Laramie, Wyoming. 

David Gessner (Blue River Fellow) is a writer, editor, and cartoonist. His books include All the Wild That Remains: Edward Abbey, Wallace Stegner and the American West; Sick of Nature; and Return of the Osprey. Gessner has published essays in many magazines, including Outside Magazine and the New York Times Magazine, and he has won the John Burroughs Award for Best Nature Essay, a Pushcart Prize, and inclusion in Best American Nonrequired Reading. Visit David online.

John Bates (Long-Term Ecological Reflections) is the author of seven books on the Northwoods and Upper Midwest, and a contributor to four others. He has worked as a state forest naturalist for the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources and owns Trails North, a naturalist guide service. He also conducts outdoor classes for Nicolet College, the University of Wisconsin Extension, and the North Lakeland Discovery Center. For twenty years he has written a biweekly column, "A Northwoods Almanac" for the Lakeland Times in Minocqua, Wisconsin. Visit John online. 

Mary Burns (Long-Term Ecoligcal Reflections) expresses her love of northern woodlands and waters in her weavings and writings. Mary's first novel Heartwood is a fantasy/natural history novel for young adults. An award-winning weaver, she weaves custom designed hand-woven rugs and wall pieces. Mary also creates tapestries and felted work that reflect the hues and patterns of the natural world. Visit Mary online.

Todd Davis (Long-Term Ecological Reflections) teaches creative writing, American literature, and environmental studies at Pennsylvania State University’s Altoona College. He is the author of collections of poetry including Winterkill, In the Kingdom of the Ditch, and Ripe. His poetry has been featured on the radio by Garrison Keillor on The Writer’s Almanac and by Ted Kooser in his syndicated newspaper column American Life in Poetry. His poems have won the Gwendolyn Brooks Poetry Prize, the Chautauqua Editor's Prize, and have been nominated several times for the Pushcart Prize. Visit Todd online.

Kathleen Caprario traded the concrete canyons of the New York/New Jersey Metro Area for the real canyons and broad skies of the Pacific NW in the late 1970’s.  She is an artist who has firmly rooted her practice in landscape, identity and the relationship of self to nature as well as an instructor at Oregon State University, Lane Community College and a stand-up comedian. She recently wrote and produced a short film based on her comedy and life, “Mourning After” (19:47), in conjunction with the Shaggy Dog Project and the Downtown Initiative for the Visual Arts (DIVA), Eugene which was premiered at the non-juried Short Film Corner at the 67th Cannes Film Festival, France (2014).  Kathleen Caprario exhibits her work regionally and nationally, and she received an Oregon Arts Commission Individual Artist Fellowship in 1989. Artist residences at the Graves’ Foundation (2014, 2009), Playa at Summer Lake (2011), the Jentel Foundation (2007) and the Ucross Foundation (1985), as well as living and working with Aboriginal children in Central Australia (2010) have informed and continue to inspire her work. Visit Kathleen here.

Thomas Titus (Visiting Writer) left the Pacific Northwest to attend the University of Kansas, where he completed a Ph.D. in evolutionary genetics. Tom returned to Oregon and works as a research biologist and instructor at the University of Oregon. His book, Blackberries in July: A Forager’s Field Guide to Inner Peace, describes his return to Oregon. Tom is currently the president of the Eugene Natural History Society and writes a monthly column for their publication Nature Trails. Visit Thomas online.

Emma Marris (Long-Term Ecological Reflections) writes about conservation, ecology, energy, agriculture, food, language, books and film. Her goal is to find and tell stories that help us understand how to increase the flourishing of both humanity and the rest of the planet’s species, how to move towards a greener, wilder, happier and more equal future. Her stories have appeared in Conservation, Slate, Discover, the New York Times and above all, Nature, where she worked as a staffer for several years. Her first book is Rambunctious Garden.

John Daniel (Blue River Fellow) is a writer and itinerant teacher in workshops and writer-in-residence positions around the country. His latest book, The Far Corner: Northwestern Views on Land, Life, and Literature, won the 2011 Oregon Book Award in Creative Nonfiction from Literary Arts. Daniel has won a Pushcart Prize, the Margery Davis Boyden Wilderness Writing Residency, the Andres Berger Award for Creative Nonfiction, and the John Burroughs Nature Essay Award. He is chair of PEN Northwest, a regional branch of the writers’ organization PEN American Center, and administers the annual Margery Davis Boyden Wilderness Writing Residency in the Rogue River canyon. Visit John online.

D. Allen (Long-Term Ecological Reflections) is a poet, musician, and artist currently living in Minneapolis, MN, with strong ties to Madison, WI, Durham, NC, and southern Vermont. Using poetic and essayistic forms, D.’s writing explores the body, illness/disability, the natural world, sexuality and gender. Currently, D. is working on Connective Tissue, a collection of poems and lyric essays that uses memory, narrative, and experimental poetic structures to examine the effects of illness on the body. D. has been a writer-in-residence at The Atlantic Center for the Arts (October 2013), the Andrews Forest (March 2014), and Write On, Door County! (January 2015); some of their poems have appeared in Make/shift, Our Lives, and The Helen Burns Poetry Anthology. Visit D. Allen online.

Bill Yake (Long-Term Ecological Reflections) now living among the fir and redcedar forests bordering the Salish Sea, was born, raised, and first educated, where eastern Washington pine forests grade into the remnant black hawthorn swales and eyebrows of the Palouse Hills. His poems have been published in books, magazines, and anthologies serving the environmental and literary communities — from Orion to Wilderness Magazine, from Poetry to Open Spaces Quarterly, from Wild Earth to ISLE. They have also been featured on NPR programs, including Krulwich Wonders, and are collected in This Old Riddle: Cormorants and Rain and Unfurl, Kite, and Veer, both from Radiolarian Press.  Visit Bill here.  

Jeff Fearnside (Long-Term Ecological Reflections) is a passionate teacher, and his research interests include writing about place, culture, and the natural environment. He has published widely in literary journals and anthologies. National awards for his writing include a Grand Prize in the Santa Fe Writers Project’s Literary Awards Program and the Mary Mackey Short Story Prize. He lived and worked in Central Asia for four years, first as a university instructor through the U.S. Peace Corps and later as manager of the Muskie Graduate Fellowship Program in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. Visit Jeff online.

Joseph Bruchac (Blue River Fellow)   has been creating poetry, short stories, novels, anthologies and music for over 30 years.  His work is a reflection of his Abenaki Indian heritage and Native American traditions. He is the author of more than 120 books for children and adults. The best selling Keepers of the Earth: Native American Stories and Environmental Activities for Children and others of his “Keepers” series, with its remarkable integration of science and folklore, continue to receive critical acclaim and to be used in classrooms throughout the country.  

James Bertolino (Long-Term Ecological Reflections) taught literature and creative writing for 36 years, and retired from a position as Writer-in-Residence at Willamette University in 2006. His 12th volume of poetry, Ravenous Bliss: New and Selected Love Poems, was published by MoonPath Press in 2014.  His books have issued from presses at Princeton, Cornell, Brown and Carnegie-Mellon University.  Visit James online.

Sandra Alcosser (Blue River Fellow) is a poet whose work has appeared in The New Yorker, New York Times, Paris Review, Ploughshares, Poetry and the Pushcart Prize Anthology.  A Fish to Feed All Hunger and Except by Nature received the highest awards from the National Poetry Series, Academy of American Poets and Associated Writing Programs. She serves on the graduate faculty of Pacific University and San Diego State Univeristy. 

Tom Leskiw (Visiting Writer) designed and implemented habitat restoration projects for beleaguered salmon and steelhead in the Six Rivers National Forest in northwestern California during his career with the U.S. Forest Service. In retirement, he serves as a board member for a land trust and Audubon Society chapter, conceiving and organizing a Native Plant and Wildlife Garden Tours. Visit Tom online.

Jessica Erica Hahn (Long-Term Ecological Reflections) was born on an old ship off the coast of Florida to globe-trotting parents, but spent much of her life in San Francisco, where she still lives with her nuclear family. Her writing can be found in several literary journals, and she has two self-published books from the 1990s,Transient Ways and Elysian Fields: A Fucked Up Love Story. The novel she's writing about seafaring hippies won the Clark-Gross Award. Visit Jessica online. 

Brian Turner (Blue River Fellow) is a poet, essayist, biographer and editor. As one of New Zealand's most significant writers on landscape, environmentalism and sport, Turner brings a fresh perspective to nature poetry, and at once aims to be personal but unsentimental in his approach. Brian Turner was appointed as the fourth Te Mata Estate New Zealand Poet Laureate in 2003. His work is frequently anthologized in collections of poetry and literary sports writing. He has published numerous collections of poetry, as well as works of non-fiction.

Karin Gastreich (Long-Term Ecological Reflections) writes tales of ordinary women and the extraordinary paths they choose. The worlds she creates are a strange amalgamation of medieval Europe and colonial Costa Rica, with misty forests, vast savannas, and steamy jungles. They are populated by brave heroines, noble heroes, and twisted villains. Karin's novels blend elements of epic fantasy, historical fiction, and romance. Grounded in traditional fantasy and real history, she crafts a diverse array of compelling male and female characters, weaving the natural world into all her stories.

Allison Adelle Hedge Coke (Visiting Writer) is an American Book Award-winning poet whose books include The Year of the Rat; Burn and Streaming; and Rock Ghost, Willow, Deer. She is the editor of the anthologies Sing: Poetry of the Indigenous Americas, Effigies and Effigies II and serves as a Distinguished Writer in Residence at the University of Hawai'i, Manoa. Hedge Coke came of age working fields, factories, and waters and is currently at work on a film, Red Dust: resiliency in the dirty thirtiesand a new CD with Rd Klā. Visit Allison online.

Lori Anderson Moseman (Long-Term Ecological Reflections) runs Stockport Flats, a poetry press she founded in the wake of Federal Disaster #1649, a Delaware River flood. Her poetry collections books are Utmost Brevity (forthcoming Spyten Dyvil 2015), All Steel (Flim Forum Press 2012), Temporary Bunk (Swank Books 2006), Persona (Swank Books 2003) and Cultivating Excess (The Eighth Mountain Press 1991).

Kathleen Heideman (Long-Term Ecological Reflections) is a writer and artist based in Upper Michigan. Her work investigates landscape, scientific research, and environmental concerns.  Heideman has completed a dozen artist residencies with experimental scientific research stations, watersheds, private foundations, and the National Park Service, including residencies at Apostle Islands, Isle Royale, Voyageurs, Devils Tower, Badlands, and other parks. She is currently at work on a collection of poetry entitled Departments of the Interior. Visit Kathleen online.

Jane Hirshfield (Blue River Fellow) eight poetry books include The Beauty (Knopf, 2015) and Come, Thief (2011); other works include two essay collections and four books co-translating the work of world poets of the past. Her work appears in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, and eight editions of The Best American Poems. She is a current Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets. Visit Jane online. 

John R. Campbell (Long-Term Ecological Reflections) essays and poems have appeared in many literary journals, including Poetry, The Georgia Review, and The North American Review. His book of environmental meditations, Absence and Light, is available from the University of Nevada Press. Campbell has won awards from Poets and Writers, Utah Arts Council, the Fulbright Program, and others. See johnrobertcampbell.com for samples of his writing, images, and music. 

Gary Paul Nabhan (Blue River Fellow) is an internationally-celebrated nature writer, food and farming activist, and proponent of conserving the links between biodiversity and cultural diversity. He has been been honored as a pioneer and creative force in the "local food movement” and seed saving community by Utne Reader, Mother Earth News, New York Times, Bioneers and Time magazine. Visit Gary online. 

Jim Dodge (Long-Term Ecological Reflections) is an American novelist and poet whose works combine themes of folklore and fantasy, set in a timeless present. He has published three novels, Fup, Not Fade Away and Stone Junction and a collection of poetry and prose, Rain on the River.

Rob Hoshaw (Visiting Writer) is the Operations Manager for the Long Tom Watershed Council, a science and community-based watershed protection and restoration non-profit. He completed his B.S. in zoology at North Dakota State University and his MA in environmental studies from the University of Oregon. Visit Rob online.

Thomas Lowe Fleischner (Long-Term Ecological Reflections) , Director of the Natural History Institute and Professor of Environmental Studies at Prescott College, is editor of the anthology, The Way of Natural History, and author of Singing Stone: A Natural History of the Escalante Canyons, Desert Wetlands, and numerous articles.  A naturalist and conservation biologist, he was the founding President of the Natural History Network.  Visit Thomas online. 

Freeman House (Blue River Fellow) is a former commercial salmon fisher who has been involved with a community-based watershed restoration effort in northern California for more than 25 years. He is a co-founder of the Mattole Salmon Group and the Mattole Restoration Council. His book, Totem Salmon: Life Lessons from Another Species received the best nonfiction award from the San Francisco Bay Area Book Reviewers Association and the American Academy of Arts and Letters’ Harold D. Vursell Memorial Award for quality of prose. He lives with his family in northern California.

Maya Jewell Zeller (Long-Term Ecological Reflections) grew up in rural areas of the Pacific Northwest. She is the author of Rust Fish, a collection of poetry from Lost Horse Press; her nonfiction and poetry appear in Pleiades, West Branch,Cincinnati Review, and elsewhere. Maya lives in Spokane with her husband and two small children.

Anita Sullivan (Visiting Writer) is a piano tuner, poet, editor, publisher, gardener, translator, birdwatcher, and rock art enthusiast. She holds an MFA in Poetry from Pacific Lutheran University. In addition to her books, Anita has published many essays, book reviews and poems both off and on line, and her work has been anthologized. Visit Anita online.

Kim Stafford (Visiting Writer) directs the Northwest Writing Institute at Lewis & Clark College, and is the author of a dozen books of poetry and prose, including Having Everything Right and 100 Tricks Every Boy Can Do: How My Brother Disappeared. His poetry chapbook How to Sleep Cold is forthcoming in fall 2016 from Limberlost Press. He has taught writing in Scotland, Italy, and Bhutan. Visit Kim online. 

Joan Maloof (Long-Term Ecological Reflections) is a scientist, a writer, and the Founder and Director of the Old-Growth Forest Network, a nonprofit organization creating a network of forests that will remain forever unlogged and open to the public.  Her books are, Teaching the Trees: Lessons from the Forest and Among the Ancients: Adventures in the Eastern Old-Growth Forests.  Maloof is a Professor Emeritus at Salisbury University in Maryland. Visit Joan online.

Jane Coffey (Long-Term Ecological Reflections) is a free-lance writer and photographer living in Brooklyn, New York. Her essays and articles have appeared in Orion, Earthwatch, and other publications. Her volunteer activities have includes watershed monitoring and census studies for endangered species. She presently works at the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation in New York City. Visit Jane online.

Kathie Durbin (Long-Term Ecological Reflections) was an award-winning environmental journalist who worked at the Eugene Register-Guard, Willamette Week, the Oregonian and the Columbian of Vancouver. In the course of her career, Kathie wrote three books: Tree Huggers, Tongass, and The Columbia River Gorge: Bridging a Great Divide. A poet and an avid traveller, Kathie loved the Pacific Northwest. 

Kevin McKelvey (Long-Term Ecological Reflections) is a poet and essayist who teaches writing, editing, and publishing at the University of Indianapolis. He has held residencies at the Writers' Colony at Dairy Hollow, H. J. Andrews Experimental Forest, and Isle Royale National Park. Part of his book-length sequence inspired by the Charles C. Deam Wilderness Area in Indiana were published in Dream Wilderness, a chapbook. The Indiana Arts Commission awarded him a grant to write poems about Indiana's Wabash River. He lives with his wife and two children in Indianapolis in a house built in 1890. Visit Kevin online. 

Vicki Graham (Long-Term Ecological Reflections) is the author of three collections of poetry, The Hummingbird's Tongue, The Tenderness of Bees, andAlembic, teaches English, Creative Writing, and Environmental Studies at the University of Minnesota, Morris.  She divides her time between the Minnesota prairie and the southern coast of Oregon.  Her poems and articles have appeared in Poetry, The Midwest Quarterly, ISLE, EarthLines Magazine, and Seneca Review, among others.

Terre Ryan (Visiting Writer) is an assistant professor of writing at Loyola University Maryland. “She explores the overlapping trails of national mythology, landscape aesthetics, patriotic discourse, and public policy in her book This Ecstatic Nation: The American Landscape and the Aesthetics of Patriotism. Visit Terre online.

Pattiann Rogers (Blue River Fellow) Pattiann Rogers has published ten books, most recently Generations (Penguin, 2004) and Song of the World Becoming, New and Collected Poems, 1981 - 2001 (Milkweed Editions). This book contains all of her poems previously published in books, plus forty new poems, and line and title indexes. It was a finalist for the LA Times Book Award and was named an Editor's Choice, Top of the List by Booklist.

Robin Kimmerer (Blue River Fellow) is a mother, botanist, writer and Distinguished Teaching Professor at the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse, New York, where she is the founding Director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment. Her writings include Gathering Moss, which was awarded the John Burroughs Medal in 2005 and Braiding Sweetgrass : Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants in 2013.