Spring Creek Project

Elizabeth Rush (Blue River Fellow) is the author of many books including the recently released Still Lifes from a Vanishing City: Essays and Photographs from Yangon, Myanmar. Her work chronicles communities being irrevocably changed by late capitalist industrialization, and has appeared or is forthcoming in Granta, Orion, The New Republic, Le Monde Diplomatique, Al Jazeera, Witness, the Huffington Post, Frieze, Nowhere, Asian Geographic, The Dark Mountain Project and others. View some of her work at www.elizabethrush.net

John S. Farnsworth (Long-Term Ecological Reflections) studies literary natural history and Anglo-American nature writing. He also dabbles in historical ecology, environmental rhetoric, and the history of environmental thought.  He teaches Environmental Studies and Sciences at Santa Clara University, and consults on education for sustainability, especially concerning sustainability-across-the-curriculum programs at the university level. For a preview of his work, go to www.jsfarnsworth.net

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.

Paul Miller (Long-Term Ecological Reflections) is a composer, multimedia artist, and author. Miller first rose to worldwide fame as hip-hop turntablist "DJ Spooky," and is now a sought-after lecturer and performer at prestigious venues, arts institutions, and universities. He is known for his genre-bending art, catalogue of music, and work in social justice. Miller is a National Geographic Young Explorer, executive editor of Origin Magazine, and founder of the Vanuatu Pacifica Foundation, a sustainable arts center on the island of Vanuatu. Visit Paul online.

T. Geronimo Johnson (Blue River Fellow) is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and a former Stegner Fellow at Stanford. Johnson has taught writing at UC Berkeley, Stanford, Iowa Writers’ Workshop, The Prague Summer Program, San Quentin, and elsewhere. His first novel, Hold it ‘til it Hurts, was a finalist for the 2013 PEN/Faulkner Award. Welcome to Braggsville, his second novel, follows four UC Berkeley students who stage a protest during a Civil War reenactment in the heart of Georgia. Visit Geronimo online.

Gretel Van Wieren (Long-Term Ecological Reflections)  is Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Michigan State University where her courses focus on religion, ethics, and the environment. She is author of the book, Restored to Earth: Christianity, Environmental Ethics, and Ecological Restoration.  Van Wieren is a participant in the Values Roundtable of the New Academy for Nature and Culture, an informal coalition of scholars who have come together to explore a new theory of values for environmental thinking.  Visit Gretel 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.

Erin Halcomb (Long-Term Ecological Reflections) is the program manager of the Taft-Nicholson Center, which works to bridge the arts and humanities with the sciences at University of Utah. She has worked in fire suppression, forest restoration, and wildlife biology. But her simultaneous passion for writing, as a unique method for sharing the beauty and value of nature, brought her to the University of Utah. She recently graduated from the Environmental Humanities master's program. In the Centennial Valley, she shares her delight for birds and her desire to protect wide-open spaces.

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.  

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.

Kristin Berger (Long-Term Ecological Reflections) was born in Detroit, Michigan, and raised in the surrounding suburbs and Northern Michigan. She received her BA in Creative Writing from Western Michigan University, and has lived in the Pacific Northwest since 1994. She is the author of a poetry chapbook, For the Willing (Finishing Line Press, 2008), and co-edited VoiceCatcher 6: Portland/Vancouver Area Women Writers and Artists (2011) with Toni Partington. Kristin is the recipient of writer residencies at The H.J. Andrews Forest, Starkey Experimental Forest and Range, and Playa. Her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and the Oregon Book Award. She lives in Portland, Oregon. Visit Kristin online.

Kristine Zeigler (Long-Term Ecological Reflections) has spent the past sixteen years as a professional fundraiser finding financial resources to safeguard animals and nature. Her books include The Bark, The Peregrine, and Harvard’s Charles River Review. As Director of Philanthropy at The Nature Conservancy in California, Kristine works for the world’s largest environmental nonprofit and raises more than $30 million annually for land and water conservation globally. Visit Kristine online.

Carla Wise (Long-Term Ecological Reflections) is an environmental and science writer based in western Oregon. She has written on a variety of topics, including forest management, endangered species protection, agriculture, the local foods movement, endocrine-disrupting chemicals, and biomimicry. Most of her writing currently focuses on agriculture and climate change. Wisae has a Ph.D. in biology and has worked in natural resource policy, environmental consulting, and plant conservation research. Her writing has appeared in publications including The Oregonian, High Country News, The Huffington Post, and The Utne Reader. Visit Carla online.

Brenda Peterson (Long-Term Ecological Reflections) curiosity about and respect for nature radiates through her 17 books, which range from her first memoir Build Me an Ark: A Life with Animals, chosen as a “Best Spiritual Book of 2001,” to three novels, one of which, Duck and Cover, was chosen by New York Times as Notable Book of the Year. Her memoir, I Want To Be Left Behind: Finding Rapture Here on Earth was selected by The Christian Science Monitor among the Top Ten Best Non-Fiction Books of 2010. Visit Brenda online. 

Carey Bagdassarian (Long-Term Ecological Reflections) teaches in the Chemistry Department at The College of William and Mary. His research interests have meandered over the years, settling, finally, at the interface of art and science. He hopes to create, with his colleague Elizabeth Mead in the Art Department, a reciprocal and emergent dialogue between the two.

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. 

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.

Tim Fox (Long-Term Ecological Reflections) has worked as an owl researcher, vegetation surveyor, archaeological field crew leader and writer in the fir and hemlock forests of the central Oregon Cascades, where he lives with his wife and son. His work has been published in Orion magazine and on the Yes! magazine website. 

Jerry Martien (Long-Term Ecological Reflections) lives near Elk River, a tributary of Humboldt Bay. He is the author of a collection of poetry,Pieces in Place, a nonfiction book: Shell Game: A True Account of Beads and Money in North America, and two cd's of music and spoken word, most recently The Road to Heaven. For years Jerry was a visiting poet in rural northern California Schools and later taught poetry and nature writing at Humboldt State University. He has edited and written for ephemeral bioregional rags and has organized and given local readings for three and a half decades.

John Elder (Blue River Fellow) is known for his wonderful teaching and for his critical work on nature writing. He is the author most recently of Reading the Mountains of Home and has edited an encyclopedia, American Nature Writers, and (with Robert Finch) The Norton Anthology of Nature Writing. Elder lives in the Green Mountain village of Bristol with his wife Rita. He retired from Middlebury College after teaching English and Environmental Studies there for 37 years. While continuing to sugar in the nearby uplands of Starksboro, he has recently begun to write about the landscape and history of Ireland and about their affinities with those of Vermont.  

Elizabeth Bernays (Long-Term Ecological Reflections)   is a professor of Entomology at the University of Arizona. She is a biologist turned writer. After growing up in Australia, she received her Ph.D. in 1970 at the University of London, England, and had a career as an academic entomologist (most recently as a professor in UC Berkeley and then University of Arizona) before obtaining an MFA at the University of Arizona where she is currently a Regents' Professor Emerita. Bernays has published over two hundred scientific papers and books and several popular biology articles, as well as a children's book. She has published poems and essays in a variety of literary journals. Visit Elizabeth online.

Laird Christensen (Long-Term Ecological Reflections) teaches writing and environmental studies at Green Mountain College, where he directs the graduate program in Resilient and Sustainable Communities. His poems and essays have appeared in a variety of anthologies and magazines, including Wild Earth, Northwest Review, Whole Terrain, Northern Woodlands, and Utne Reader. His books include Teaching about Place and Teaching North American Environmental Literature. Visit Laird here.

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.

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. 

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.

Bill Sherwonit (Long-Term Ecological Reflections) has called Alaska home since 1982. He has contributed essays and articles to a wide variety of newspapers, magazines, journals, and anthologies and is also the author of 13 books. His most recent books include Living with Wildness: An Alaskan Odyssey and Changing Paths: Travels and Meditations in Alaska’s Arctic Wilderness, both published by the University of Alaska Press. Most of Sherwonit’s work focuses on Alaskan subjects, with an emphasis on wilderness adventure, wildlands preservation, environmental issues, natural history, wildlife management, relationship with place, and notions of wildness, including the wildness to be found in and around his adopted home, Anchorage.  Visit Bill online.

Alison Hawthorne Deming (Blue River Fellow) is the author, most recently of Zoologies: On Animals and the Human Spirit, as well as eight other books of poetry and nonfiction. She is Agnese Nelms Haury Professor of Environment and Social Justice at the University of Arizona where she teaches in the Creative Writing Program. Visit Allison 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.