Indian Summer

September 18, 2010

Dear Fishtrap Friends:

Indian Summer is here at last, and with it warmer days and nights. The home canners are fired up and so are their kettles, rolling and tumbling to seal beets, pickled cucumbers and green beans, tomatoes, peaches, jam and more in jars for the winter. I pulled my black enamel pot out of retirement when I was in Portland last weekend, and it’s here with me in the County now, ready to join the fun. According to a recent piece I heard on NPR, canning has become trendy like knitting did a few years back, the latest do-it-yourself revival story. (Imagine, they're having canning parties in Boston and Manhattan.) So, get out your Ball jars, and while the kettle is boiling, pen a verse or two inspired by the sound, the scent, the stickiness. Send them to us at info@fishtrap.org, and we’ll share them on the Fishtrap website and Facebook page (which, as some of you have noted, needs a lift like this).

The Imnaha Writer's Retreat still has just a few openings for October. Call us at 541-426-3623 or write to me at barbara@fishtrap.org if you are interested. $150 for a week of writing in a beautiful spot among friends. Can't beat that.

Fun With Friends of William Stafford… and Introducing Vox
While in Portland, I stopped in at the annual Friends of William Stafford picnic in Lake Oswego last Sunday. What a feast of poetry and potluck converged there! Fishtrap’s very own Rich Wandschneider was the Master of Ceremonies, Oregon’s new Poet Laureate Paulann Petersen offered poems and stories about Bill, and many other Stafford fans got up to speak and read. A further highlight was the delightful spoken word chorus, Vox, whose group treatments of Stafford poems added another dimension to the day. We are hoping to be able to bring Vox out to Fishtrap sometime. "We take poetry from the page and speak it in interpretive chorus," says Eric Hull, Director of Vox. "It's an experiment in form and expression. Some of the words are spoken in unison, some are solo, and some are spoken in combinations or counterpoint.” I encourage those of you in the Portland area to catch Vox October 15-17 and 22-24 at Waterbrook Studio, 2127 N. Albina. Details at voxpdx.com.

Oregon Is Indian Country: An Evening Program with Tom and Woesha Hampson
Please join us September 23 at 7:30 at Stage One on Main Street in Enterprise to welcome longtime Fishtrap friends Tom and Woesha Hampson. They will be sharing thoughts related to the Oregon Is Indian Country exhibit panel “Traditions That Bind” in a talk entitled “Culture and Continuity in Indian Country.” The exhibit will be open starting at 6:30 pm that evening, so if you haven’t had a chance to visit it yet, this will be a great opportunity.

Tom Hampson is Executive Director of the Oregon Native American Business and Entrepreneurial Network (ONABEN) and was part of the creative team that produced the acclaimed play, The Ghosts of Celilo. He has been involved in business and cultural arts development for Northwest tribes for more than 20 years. Woesha Hampson is the granddaughter of Henry Roe Cloud, who was the first Indian admitted to Yale University, a noted educator, and eventually the Superintendent of the Umatilla Indian Agency. Tom and Woesha lived and worked on the Umatilla Reservation in the 1970s.

Next up:
October 6: David Lewis, Grand Ronde, will speak on "Treaties and Sovereignty in Indian Country"

October 20: Eric Queaempts, Umatilla, and Joe McCormack, Nez Perce, will speak on "First Foods in Indian Country"

Regular open hours for the exhibit are Tuesday through Friday, 11:30 am – 1:30 pm through October 6, but special arrangements can be made for school and community groups at other times. We hosted the Wallowa 4th and 5th graders last week and will enjoy sharing the exhibit with the Enterprise 5th graders and the Girls Scouts this week. Come one, come all!

Fishtrap Anthology: Honor your friends, your fellow writers, your pets, or your favorite Fishtrap instructors
The 2010 Fishtrap Anthology is on its way to becoming a book, but it’s not there yet. Thanks to the 2010 Summer Fishtrap participants and faculty members who submitted, we have collected a very rich assortment of poetry and prose inspired by our 2010 theme “Spirit and Matter.”

As always, our ability to bring the Anthology all the way to print while keeping the purchase price affordable for everyone depends on raising additional funds through sponsorships and display ads. This year, we’re thinking about those display “ads” in a broader, more creative way. Here’s the deal: If you attended Summer Fishtrap this year or want to honor someone who did, or if you just want to tip your hat to your Fishtrap friends near and far, your beloved faculty presenters, your parents, your spouse, your kids, your pets, or your pet peeves… why not purchase a little corner of the book? We need a minimum of $1000 in sponsorships of some kind. That’s 10 of you at $100 or 20 at $50, or some combo of the two. Janis will work with you on the content and design of your display ad or listing. (And Heather will be happy to take your payments.) As long as your ad's not X-rated, we’ll run it. A photo of your corgi, bishon frise or basset hound? Sure. A tribute to your moth-er? Why not. In honor of _________. Celebrating _________. Stretch your thinking on this one. And if you have a service or business you’d like to promote to the Fishtrap audience, we’ll take those more conventional ads too, of course.

For more info or to float your craziest idea, write to janisc@fishtrap.org. This offer closes as soon as we reach our fundraising goal for the Anthology, so don’t delay. The sooner we reach that goal, the sooner the 2010 Anthology will become a book you can hold in your hands.

Wallowa County Writers’ Group
A writers’ group is now meeting weekly Tuesdays, 10 am -12 pm at the Fishtrap Coffin House, 400 E. Grant Street in Enterprise. Bring something of your own to read. Short writing exercises will sometimes be done at meetings. Prose, poetry, and other forms welcome. One week they wrote captions for New Yorker magazine cartoons. New members are welcome. Bring a lunch of you wish. For more information, call Dick Clover at 541-432-2205, or just show up on a Tuesday.

Fishtrap College Is in Full Gear
Nineteen students, including sixteen from the three local high schools, one home-schooled student, and two adult students, are attending Fishtrap College this fall. Under the generous guidance of instructor Zanni Schauffler, they meet every Friday at the Fishtrap House for Writing 121. Those who complete the course will receive 4 college credits from Blue Mountain Community College. This is one of the many programs Fishtrap offers to support and encourage good writing in Wallowa County, especially among young people. We are grateful to the Autzen Foundation, the Collins Foundation, and to all of you who make personal donations to Fishtrap throughout the year, for keeping this vital program strong.

Wordstock: Visit us October 9 and 10 at the Oregon Convention Center
Come visit us at Wordstock, Saturday and Sunday, October 9-10, from 10 am to 6 pm. You'll find us at booth 404, which we share this year with our friends from Write Around Portland. There's lots more to do and hear at Wordstock, too, so check it out. Thanks to all the volunteers who signed up to help us staff the Fishtrap table – it will be great fun to see you there.

2011 Fishtrap Dates to Remember
January 9 -- February 13: The Big Read in Wallowa County. The book for this year is The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
February 25-27: Winter Fishtrap at Wallowa Lake Lodge. Theme: "Getting Small"
July 10-17: Summer Fishtrap at Wallowa Lake Camp. Theme: "Migrations & Passages"

More details coming soon for all three of those programs.

Happy autumn!
Barbara

Barbara Dills
Interim Executive Director