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