Monthly Archives: March 2012
Cities and Nature in Context
In Cities and Nature in the American West, scholars dissect what land, water, and urban existence have meant throughout the last century and what they continue to mean to today’s Western residents. In the introductory essay, editor Char Miller, a … Continue reading
Night: Not Just for Astronomers?
Many of us in the rural West are used to dark skies and bright stars, but in urban areas around the world, night is not as black as it once was. Paul Bogard has compiled twenty nine essays by environmental … Continue reading
Catastrophe or Nature’s Process?
Twenty-five years after Mount St. Helens’ 1980 eruption, Oregon State University sponsored a four-day trip into the blast zone. They invited relevant scientists, nature writers, other artists and academics from around the country to camp seven miles from the crater … Continue reading
Review of Don Waters’ Desert Gothic
Desert Gothic. By Don Waters Iowa City, Iowa: University of Iowa Press, 2007. 152 pages, $16.00. Reviewed by Andrea Clark Mason Washington State University, Pullman _______________________________________________________________ Waters’ collection shows the breadth and depth of characters who populate the contemporary American … Continue reading
Review of The God of Animals
New York: Scribner, 2007. 305 pages, $25/$14 Reviewed by Andrea Clark Mason Washington State University Aryn Kyle’s debut novel, The God of Animals, is a rarity: a first novel that doesn’t read like one. Kyle takes us into a … Continue reading
Review of Desert Gothic by Don Waters
Desert Gothic. By Don Waters Iowa City, Iowa: University of Iowa Press, 2007. 152 pages, $16.00. Reviewed by Andrea Clark Mason Washington State University, Pullman _______________________________________________________________ Waters’ collection shows the breadth and depth of characters who populate the contemporary American … Continue reading
The Enders Hotel: The Pulse of a Small, Western Town
The memoir The Enders Hotel chronicles a childhood and coming of age in Soda Springs, Idaho amidst hard-working grandparents, the beauty of the high desert, and the rampant alcoholism of a Western “company” town. After stints in Idaho and Washington, … Continue reading
Don’t Tell Her She Can’t: The Persistence of Mary Clearman Blew
Age: 71 Hometown: Lewistown, Montana Vocation: Creative Writing Professor at the University of Idaho Known to friends and graduate students for: authentic Chinese cooking and homemade cheesecake What kept her going as a woman in male-dominated … Continue reading
Avalanches for dummies
Name: Homer Hometown: Bozeman, MT Occupation: Extreme sports guinea pig Best Look: Powder beard A man leans on a bamboo pole high above the slopes in Bozeman at Montana’s Bridger Bowl. From a distance, he … Continue reading
The Past In Pieces
Having my morning cup of coffee, I open The Lewiston Tribune to an article on a public archeology day at the excavation of a former Japanese internment camp. Over the past ten years of hiking, soaking in hot springs, and … Continue reading