Nature Writing by the Numbers

categories: Cocktail Hour

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I posted this on the Orion blog the other day, and thought I’d re-post it here at home….

 

 

My New Book…and New Adventure…..And maybe a little help from you, Dear Reader

categories: Cocktail Hour

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It was almost exactly two years ago that I headed down to the Gulf of Mexico during the BP oil spill. Many of you came with me, metaphorically speaking.   This summer, with the fires raging, I will head West.  My goal is to blog from the road, while creating a kind of state of the eco West report.  As I travel I will also follow the trail left by the ghosts of  Edward Abbey and Wallace Stegner, and will ask what they would make of the state of things.  To help fund my trip I have made a movie and launched a Kickstarter campaign, both of which you can see here:

http://kck.st/MyGzpw

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Guest contributor: Kristen Keckler

Bad Advice Wednesday: Everything I Need to Know about Writing I Learned from Bartending!

categories: Bad Advice / Cocktail Hour

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Make it a Double!

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Bill and Dave have got me thinking about cocktails. Writing, too, of course, and how the two fit together. And I’d really like to hear about how your work fits in with your writing.  Or how it doesn’t.  See, once upon a time I was a bartender. And lately, I’ve noticed that people who haven’t worked in the service industry react to that with a certain reverence and awe. “Wow, I wish I’d done that when I was younger,” they say. They imagine I was a sort of female Tom Cruise, shaking fruity libations, tossing bottles, juggling coconuts to the likes of “Kokamo,” lots of wicker and palm fronds and gorgeous customers lining up to fall in love. Continue reading →

Wild, by Cheryl Strayed

categories: Cocktail Hour / Reading Under the Influence

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Far from my studio, in the world of Wild.

 

I really loved reading Wild, by Cheryl Strayed.  I’m not alone in that, of course.  The book has had the trajectory of a rocket and has left earth’s constricting atmosphere, bound for the heavens, and history.  Cheryl Strayed has built the most compelling narrative out of a walk on the Pacific Coast Trail.  Walk, ha.  It’s 1100 miles of difficult terrain, from desert to snowfield to deep, dark forest.  Also the forest of the soul.  And that’s where the irresistible drive of this book takes place, the soul.  Trail stories are nearly universally boring—a privileged person wears out some shoes, or a funny person mocks the enterprise, or an achiever overvalues his experience and documents every hard-won sandwich.  Whatever, in the end they are victors, and their triumph has a moral. Continue reading →

Getting Outside Saturday: A Couple of Journal Pages From Long Ago

categories: Cocktail Hour

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Bad Advice Wednesday: Be Relentlessly Generous

categories: Bad Advice / Cocktail Hour

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Dave, Suzanne, Judy, Andy, Eve, Christine, at Doe Branch [photo Bill Roorbach]

When I look back on the last nine years, since my daughter’s birth, they are a blur.  I’m sure you know the feeling.  During this time my life changed not just because I became a father but because I became a teacher (as I wrote here-conflictedly–last week).  I started as a one term fill-in as a Briggs Copeland at Harvard, and then moved down here to become a professor at the University of North Carolina Wilmington. Continue reading →