Loess, longboards, and secret handshakes

Hello Fishtrap Friends,

A dozen local high school students recently completed a Fishtrap College writing course in argumentation here at Fishtrap’s Coffin House. You may find that an odd name for our headquarters. The house is named after Gwen and Gladys Coffin, the previous owners. Gwen was the long-time publisher and editor of the Wallowa County Chieftain, our local weekly newspaper. Rich is fond of pointing out that Gwen was one of the first editors to decry the U.S. internment camps for Japanese U.S. citizens during World War II. When Fishtrap was able to purchase this house in 2001 with the help of over 400 donors, foundations, and the generosity of the Coffin children, we named the house in the Coffins’ honor.

Anyway, our very own Janis Carper’s son Joe(y) took the class, arriving on his long board each day. (I once called it a skateboard, but was oh-so-quickly corrected.) I noticed his LONG board leaned up against the old manual typewriter that Gwen Coffin once used to write his editorials. Janis likes the photo, and Joe(y) likes his new-found skills in argumentation.

THIS WEEK

This Thursday, April 29, at 7 pm, Gypsy Java, the new coffeehouse at 118 West Main Street in Enterprise, will be hosting a Speak Easy event. “Share original poetry or a story, make believe or real,” says host Rose Caslar, one of that generation of young adults who grew up in Wallowa County, left for parts unknown, and decided that the old stomping grounds looked pretty good in retrospect. Rose is an exceptional young lady, and everyone I know is thrilled to have her back.

There are a few of us in Enterprise who habitually get around by foot or bicycle. Like drivers, we can recognize each other by our “rigs.” Rob has an orange mountain bike with 3-gallon white plastic buckets on either side of the rear wheel. I have an old green Trek road bike with faded red nylon panniers hanging from the front wheel. And Peter Donovan has one of those big lattice milk crates perched on top of his rear rack.

Peter may also be one of the smartest people I know. He keeps a low profile, but is always working on something interesting. Lately that interesting something is loess – the deep, fertile, wind-blown soil that makes up the Palouse (of which, I heard once, Wallowa County’s Zumwalt prairie is considered a part).

On Friday, April 30, at 7 pm at the Coffin House (now you know what that means), Peter, who founded the Soil Carbon Coalition, will host a film and discussion about loess – in China. Those interested in climate change, big government, watershed restoration, or desertification will find this a worthwhile evening. The event is free.

LESSONS FROM THE LOESS PLATEAU is a superb and fascinating 52-minute documentary about fixing poverty by restoring ecological function. The scene is north central China's loess plateau, the cradle of Han civilization, where centuries of poor agricultural methods had resulted in horrific soil erosion and persistent poverty. In the 1990s a project the size of Wallowa, Union, and Baker counties, combining land reform with massive restoration and terracing of erodible slopes, was initiated by the Chinese government with the cooperation of the World Bank. Filmmaker John Liu spent years documenting the project, gaining a deep understanding of the underlying social and ecological realities. This carefully crafted and moving film is an engaging look at rural China in the midst of changes that few have heard about.

COMING SOON

We had a heck of a thunderstorm here the other night. I had planned to go to a Ukalaliens ukelele workshop with Steve Einhorn and Kate Power. They’ve been spreading ukalalienism all over the country lately. As Arlo Guthrie taught us, “if one person, just one person does it they may think he's really sick,” but if three people do it, “they may think it’s an organization.” And if fifty people do it, “friends, they may thinks it's a movement.” So I, being one of those habitual walkers in Enterprise, was walking over to the Woodshed to join The Movement, and I decided to carry an umbrella. And it’s a good thing I did, because coming back, it rained 3-gallon buckets.

But, it occurred to me, this was one of the cultural differences between you city folks and them country folks. Country folks don’t use umbrellas, except maybe if they’re sittin’ watchin’ their kids play baseball. You don’t see cowboys herdin’ cows with a lasso in one hand and an umbrella in the other. But city folks do. Carry umbrellas, that is, not herd cattle.

I digress. Steve and Kate put on a great Ukalaliens workshop, including the teaching of the secret handshake. For those of you who know and love them, or who ought to know and love them, you should plan on going to Fishstock in The Dalles on Saturday, May 15. There will be a few other musicians and writers there, too. Rosalie Sorrels, who was probably singing “Alice’s Restaurant” along with Arlo way back when. Dan Maher of Inland Folk fame. And Clem Starck and Robin Cody will be reading. Tickets are $25, available at http://fishstockoregon.net. I’ll be there, and hope you will join us.

Gotta run,

Rick Bombaci
Executive Director

Sewage ponds and the "liquid that flowed in the veins of the gods"

Hello Fishtrap Friends,

I visited a couple of outlying Fishtrap programs over the past week. First it was to Harney County in southeast Oregon, home of the annual John Scharff Migratory Bird Festival, held on the first full weekend each April. At an elevation of over 4,000 feet, Burns was still more winter than spring. In between walks alongside the city’s sewage ponds, where 1,000, no 2,000, no, maybe 5,000 snow geese gabbled in the warmth, I met with this year’s Writer-in-Residence, Kristy Athens.

As Kristy emailed some friends a couple of weeks ago, “I am smack-dab in the middle of a two-month adventure in the Oregon outback. This is an amazing experience. The first week, I worked with the kids in Frenchglen, a town with 36 registered voters. In this two-room school, I worked with the K-3 grades (ten students) and then moved over to the 4-8 grades (four students). The younger kids drew ‘Word Pictures;’ the older ones went on to write fantastic Plein Air pieces.”

When I visited, Kristy was coaching some adults through another Pleir Air writing exercise. Lacking the warmth of the sewage ponds, these folks suffered gamely. Wrote one writer, Linda Harrington, “These are the hardest days for me in Burns. The ones where the wind howls and hisses and bellows at me as if to say, ‘Go away, newcomer, you will never adapt to this place.’ It is tough country.” (See www.fishtrap.org/eowir_hc.shtml for Linda’s full piece). Tough country, great material for writing. Thanks, Kristy and Harney County volunteers Kate Marsh-Copeland, Carolyn Koskela, and Peg Wallis, for making the Writer in Residence program a success this year.

Then it was down to Imnaha, where writers have been staying for a week or two during the month of April. I got there just in time for fresh steelhead. A big thank you to Penny Hetherington, who donated a week’s retreat to another happy writer. After hearing folks share what they’d been working on, I wandered outside and slept under the stars beside the Imnaha River, dreamt of a long-ago love, and woke before dawn to drive home past tentative deer and turkeys by the dim roadside. To learn more about the Imnaha Retreat, go to www.fishtrap.org/imnaha.shtml. There’s still plenty of room in October.

If you are in Wallowa County, go to the Mid-Valley Theatre performance of To Kill a Mockingbird this weekend at the Providence Academy in Lostine. Show is at 7 pm on Friday and Saturday, and Sunday at 2 pm. I have heard that it’s been standing room only at this “best-ever production.” Kudos to the all-volunteer cast, which has put in 3,000 hours of time to date.

The second edition of Fishstock will be upon us before you know it. Join us in The Dalles on May 15 for a fun afternoon and evening of book signings, music, and readings, with Robin Cody, Clem Starck, Rosalie Sorrels, Steve Einhorn and Kate Power, Dan Maher, and others. Thanks to Klindt’s Booksellers, Columbia River Music, and The Dalles Area Chamber of Commerce for their support. Tickets are $25, available at http://fishstockoregon.net.

A few days before Fishstock, we will be hosting the 2010 Oregon Book Awards Author Tour, sponsored by Literary Arts. Join us on Wednesday, May 12 at the Fishtrap house to hear John Kroger of Salem, winner of the Sarah Winnemucca Award in Creative Nonfiction for Convictions: A Prosecutor's Battles Against Mafia Killers, Drug Kingpins, and Enron Thieves, Donna Matrazzo of Portland, author of Wild Things: Adventures of a Grassroots Environmentalist, and Jon Raymond of Portland, winner of the Ken Kesey Award in Fiction for Livability. The event is at 7 pm and is free to the public.

Summer Fishtrap is mostly sold out, although we do still have some room in the songwriting workshop with Cosy Sheridan, Kirsten Rian’s writing workshop for kids 8-12 years old, and the teenagers’ writing workshop with Beth Russell. See www.fishtrap.org/sft2010.htm for details on these workshops.

And if you’d like to watch a 2-minute trailer for a film about Gary Snyder which we will be screening at Summer Fishtrap, visit http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRS-UO8wOQU.

One night in Burns, a group of us ate food we’d never tried before, and played “fictionary.” You know, use the dictionary to pick a word that no one knows, and make up fake definitions to fool everyone else. Cut-throat contestant Terry Keim turned some of our favorite words of the evening into a poem:

Conenose

Oh, to knight or knout
the pesty conenose?
A bite from which then
flows a gloze
of ichor,
indicating either

you are easily wounded, or

you are a god.

Until next time,

Rick Bombaci
Executive Director

Fishtrap thanks and upcoming events

Hello Fishtrap Friends,

Thank you to musicians Heidi Muller and Bob Webb, and to Seattle writer Laura Gamache, for playing and singing and speaking at a Fishtrap House Party in Olympia, Washington. Thanks also to Al and Melissa Josephy for hosting the fundraising event.

Thank you to Wallowa County writer-in-residence Collier Nogues, who gave a final and fine poetry reading to a full house of 30 folks at Gypsy Java in Enterprise. Over the past two years as a Fishtrap College instructor, writer-in-residence, and adult workshop instructor, Collier has been a real credit to Fishtrap.

There will be an Italian Dinner at Lear’s Main Street Grill, 111 West Main Street, Enterprise, on Sunday, April 11, from 4-7 pm. Cost is $7 per person, $20 per family. The event benefits Fishtrap College, which provides college-level instruction to local high school students.

For this year’s Big Read, Fishtrap partnered with the Mid-Valley Theatre group in Lostine. The group will be performing To Kill a Mockingbird at the Providence Academy gym over the next two weekends. Show times are Friday and Saturday, April 9 and 10 at 7 pm, and Sunday, April 11, at 2 pm. The play will repeat the following weekend, April 16-18. Admission $7, $6 for seniors and students.

On Thursday, April 15, in partnership with the Bookloft, Fishtrap will host Susan L. Stoner, who will read from her new book, TIMBER BEASTS: A Sage Adair Historical Mystery. Free. Refreshments will be served. 7 pm at Fishtrap.

On Saturday, April 17 in Portland, there will be A Wine and Cheese Social at the Writers’ Dojo in St. Johns. Hosted by Molly Gloss, the event features Kim Stafford and former Fishtrap Fellows Vicente Guzman-Orozco, Barbara Dills, and Ceiridwen Terrill. Limited seating, RSVP to attend. Please contact Kathy Sewell, at kathy@fishtrap.org.

Tickets are on sale now for Fishstock 2010, coming on May 15 in The Dalles. Readings by Robin Cody and Clem Starck. Jonathan Nicholas will emcee. Music with Rosalie Sorrels, Kate Power and Steve Einhorn, and Dan Maher. Tickets are $25 at www.fishstockoregon.net.

There are still spaces available in the “Writing on the River” workshop. The five-day, fully catered combination writing workshop and whitewater rafting experience is slated for August 26-31, with renowned Montana writer and film producer Annick Smith. There will be writing prompts every morning and evening with Annick. Rich Wandschneider will also be along, as will Hells Canyon naturalist Jan Hohmann. See http://www.fishtrap.org/rivertrip.shtml for details. Cost is $1295 for adults.

Although the class is nearly full, we are still accepting registrations for the yearlong workshop “The Architecture of the Novel,” with author Jane Vandenburgh. Says one of her students from the 2008-2009 class, “She’s a powerhouse, a wizard, the most generous teacher I’ve ever had.” Learn more at http://www.fishtrap.org/yearlong.shtml.

Pilgrimmages

Hello Fishtrap Friends,

“I decided that if I committed to the process of writing, the reason for writing might present itself.” – Pam Royes, Fishtrap writing workshop participant

Summer Fishtrap registration is open, and you can commit yourself to the process of writing by joining us for a writing workshop, or come for the subsequent Gathering to hear from those who have made that commitment for a lifetime. Or do both. Some workshops are already full, but there is still plenty of room. Go to www.fishtrap.org/sft2010.htm. The theme is “Matter and Spirit.”

I have been on a few long foot journeys – pilgrimmages, perhaps – in my life, including an end-to-end hike on the Appalachian Trail (2,167 miles, as I recall) back in the year 2000. On that particular trail, there are many fellow travelers, and I met and became close friends with one in particular, a devout Catholic, whose “trail name” was Gilligan, for the little white hat he always wore. And for being a very, very funny guy. As we walked north, we talked of everything under the sun, including, of course, religion. My trail name was “Mossy Old Troll,” for being hairy and old. And for being a very, very unfunny guy.

Twenty years his senior, I thought I had a few things to teach him, like cribbage. I carried a tiny, folding cribbage board with me, and proceeded to initiate him into the mysteries of the game. Funny thing was, he never lost. Not from the very first game. After a few hundred miles and a couple of dozen defeats in a row, I finally found myself in an unbeatable position. It was in the Grayson Highlands of Virginia, the high open meadows a welcome change from miles of leafy green forest. We had stopped to enjoy the setting, while other hikers marched by, intent on Maine, still 1500 miles away.

I was 25 holes ahead of him, in the “dead hole,” the last hole before going out. Finally, victory was a sure thing. I looked at him and said, “Gilligan, if you beat me in this game, I’ll convert to Catholicism.” A sunbeam played across the hillside as he proceeded to lay down a 20 hand, with another 12 in the crib. I was dead, all right.

I never have made good on the promise. About the closest we ever came to going to church together on that hike was when we got to Maine in October, and, with our “trail family” of Yak, Yetti, and Flipper, built ourselves a sweat lodge out of sticks and tent flies. Gets the toxins out of your system, they say. We all worked up a good sweat before diving, naked, into Nahmakanta Lake to the accompaniment of loons.

A couple of years later, Gilligan came to live with me for the summer. With the enthusiasm of youth, he decided I needed a sweat lodge in my back yard, and dug out a 15 x 15 platform for the lodge and a bathtub. Then he left. A local old-timer cowboy, Sam Loftus, bequeathed me an equally old bathtub before he passed away, and now the bathtub sits on that gravel pad in my back yard.

Although it took six and a half months, the Appalachian Trail was not the longest trail I’ve hiked. That honor belongs to a seven year journey I am just about to complete here at Fishtrap. After five years as Fishtrap’s first Development Director, and two years as its second Executive Director, I am stepping down to make way for that person who has the skills, commitment, and love for writing to carry Fishtrap on the next part of the journey.

When I was asked to step into Rich Wandschneider’s shoes (bigger, both literally and figuratively, than my own), it was with the understanding that, beyond an initial one year commitment, the future was open. Now, after two years and by mutual agreement with the board, I will be moving on. The timing is good. Programs have been going well, our finances are in good shape, and all the pieces are in place for a wonderful Summer Fishtrap.

I’m not leaving this afternoon. I’ll be hanging around camp to help out a bit while we wait for the next Executive Director to come out of the woods and join Fishtrap’s trail family. In cribbage parlance, you might say I’m in the dead hole. But I will have left before Summer Fishtrap starts. I’m afraid if I did come, Brian Doyle would make me make good on my promise to Gilligan.

If you’re interested in the job, or know someone who is, there is a position announcement available for download off Fishtrap’s website. Go to the home page at www.fishtrap.org, and look for the link at the bottom of the left hand side of the page. To be considered in the first round, submit a cover letter, resume, and references by April 14. You can email them to elizabeth@fishtrap.org or sbadgerjones@eoni.com. There may be other rounds. The start date is negotiable.

What’s next for me? Well, I think I’ll name that bathtub “Nahmakanta Lake,” and get that sweat lodge built. After that, who knows? Maybe I’ll go to Norway. I hear there are trolls there.

Cheers,

Rick Bombaci
Executive Director

Circumambulation

Hello Fishtrap Friends,

I just returned from a little vacation, if you can call losing your clutch at that four way stop sign just outside of Ukiah a vacation. If you’ve never heard of Ukiah, maybe you can guess. If you do know where Ukiah is, I don’t need to explain.

But I did make it to Fossil and Condon, where I enjoyed a great meal and meeting with the committee of folks who have been leading the Eastern Oregon Writers in Residence program in those communities. (The program also operates in Harney County, Klamath County, and Wallowa County). With us was Geronimo Tagatac, author of The Weight of the Sun, who was just finishing a successful two month stint as the writer in residence in those towns.

On I limped to Portland, where I got the clutch replaced – nothing a small fortune couldn’t fix – before continuing by train to San Francisco. I got to visit the City Lights bookstore, but, honestly, spent more time at Vesuvio, right next door, bending an elbow with my daughter. That made up for the clutch, that and a circumambulation of Mount Tamalpais.

Back home, I found 249 emails and a Fishtrap calendar as full as ever:

Summer Fishtrap registration opens at 9 am on Thursday, April 1. Go to www.fishtrap.org/sft2010.htm to see the lineup of faculty, an agenda, and to register online.

At Summer Fishtrap, we will welcome five new Fellows, bringing our total to 102 since 1990. Our final judge, Charles Goodrich, had this to say about the 30 finalists he reviewed:

“I was impressed by the overall quality, and blown away by some pieces. There were many more worthy applications than there are fellowships. There were some interesting recurring elements, images, themes: lots of dogs, and rivers, often in combination. Encounters with dead animals—deer, mice, a whale—were common. The deaths of humans, too. The experience of being old is treated often, usually with great specificity and insight, unromanticized, courageous reporting from uncharted country. It's heartening to find so much good writing being done in so many distinctive voices.”

The winners are: Christine Colasurdo (OR), Dave Jarecki (OR), Christina Robertson (NV), Rob Williams (CA), and William W.Wright (CO). Congratulations, and thanks to all who submitted.

There’s plenty to keep up with between now and Summer Fishtrap.

Poet Collier Nogues is wrapping up her second superb residency here in Wallowa County. Besides working with students in four different schools, Collier taught an adult workshop, whose participants lauded her: “I would take any workshop taught by Collier,” “Collier’s feedback is good quality, and well thought through,” and “Gave great commentary, and pushed me to think, feel, beyond the boundaries of where I was at.”

You can hear Collier read her own poetry at Gypsy Java at 118 West Main Street, Enterprise, on Monday night, April 5, at 7 pm. Free.

Collier and fellow poet Zanni Schauffler have, between them, taught college-level English lessons to quite a few Wallowa County high school students over the past couple of years. While Zanni was teaching this year’s class, I waited in Portland for a new clutch, watching that old film classic, The Godfather. Killing time, you might say, while learning about the Corleone family’s personnel policies. What do Sicily and Wallowa County have in common? Help support Fishtrap College by coming to our second Italian Dinner at Lear’s Main Street Grill, 111 West Main Street, Enterprise, on Sunday, April 11, from 4-7 pm. Cost is $7 per person, $20 per family. Or else.

Meanwhile, Fishtrap’s Big Read is finally about to wrap up, with a home-grown live theater performance of To Kill a Mockingbird by the all-volunteer Mid-Valley Theatre group at the Providence Academy gym in Lostine. Show times are Friday and Saturday, April 9 and 10 at 7 pm, and Sunday, April 11, at 2 pm. The play will repeat the following weekend, April 16-18. Admission $7, $6 for seniors and students. You could catch the play on the 11th, then go have lasagna at Lears. Or else.

Check out http://preview.niot.org/blog/double-bill-kill-mockingbird-and-not-our-town for a quick peek at Wayne Inman, former police chief of Billings, Montana, who visited Wallowa County during the Big Read, talking about community responses to hate crimes. Thanks to Rhian Miller of The Working Group.

In a new partnership with our local mega-bookstore, The Bookloft, Fishtrap will be hosting a number of authors’ readings, free to the public. For starters, Susan L. Stoner will read from her new book, TIMBER BEASTS: A Sage Adair Historical Mystery, on Thursday, April 15, 7 pm at Fishtrap.

Also in April, on Saturday the 17th, is our Wine and Cheese Social at the Writers’ Dojo in St. Johns. Hosted by Molly Gloss, the event will include Kim Stafford and former Fishtrap Fellows Vicente Guzman-Orozco, Barbara Dills, and Ceiridwen Terrill. Seating is limited, so you must RSVP to attend. Please contact Fishtrap’s development director, Kathy Sewell, at kathy@fishtrap.org. It’s a fundraiser for the Fellows program, so bring your pocketbook. Or else.

Tickets are on sale NOW for FISHSTOCK 2010, coming on May 15 in The Dalles. Robin Cody, Clem Starck, Jonathan Nicholas, Rosalie Sorrels, Kate Power and Steve Einhorn, Dan Maher, Heart and Hammer. Tickets $25 at www.fishstockoregon.net.

Sheesh. My clutch is shot. I’ll be back next week with more news.

Ciao,

Rick Bombaci
Executive Director