MORE FISHING TOURNAMENTS SPAWN MORE FISHING FOR ALL
Competitive Fishing Can Benefit All Anglers
If you've been reading the outdoor section of NewWest.Net over the past week, you'll know I've been writing about the experience of being in my first fishing tournament, the Governor's Cup Walleye Tournament on Fort Peck Reservoir.
One reason I haven't been in a tournament long ago is some false impressions I had about competitive fishing, mainly my concern that it had a negative impact on fishery. Based on my limited experience, it seems that the opposite is true. Now, I believe more tournaments would mean more fishing and bigger fish for all anglers.
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Western Book Roundup
Denver Book Burglar Sentenced
Last year I mentioned the arrest of the Denver booknapper, Thomas Pilaar, who checked out about 1,400 books and DVDs from Denver-area libraries and attempted to sell them online. Pilaar pleaded guilty to theft and last week was sentenced to "10 years in prison and ordered to pay $53,549 of restitution," according to Tille Fong of the Rocky Mountain News. During the year between his arrest and his sentencing, it seems that the formerly moustached Pilaar took the time to further cultivate his facial hair.
I can't think of a way to segue gracefully into the non-felon portion of today's Roundup, so I guess I'll just proceed: Steven Wingate emailed to point out a new book deal for a fellow Colorado writer, Irene Vilar. Matthew Thornton of Publishers Weekly reported that Vilar recently sold her memoir Impossible Motherhood to Other Press.
Also in the Roundup: David Wroblewski's continued success and Albuquerque's Cary Herz is honored.
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New West Book Review
Ron McLarty’s “Art in America”
Art in America
By Ron McLarty
Viking Penguin, 366 pages, $25.95
Ron McLarty's new comic novel Art in America begins by listing the "Selected Works" of its protagonist, Steven Kearney, a 48-year-old writer who, despite decades of diligent work, has never published a book or seen one of his plays produced. All his novels are epic in scope, topping 1000 pages, and his plays are equally ambitious and lengthy.
As the book opens in New York, Kearney has just lost his girlfriend and his apartment and a car grazes him as he lugs his collected works in two trash bags over to the apartment of his best friend Roarke, a lesbian theater director. A reprieve comes for Kearney in the form of an invitation to spend the summer in Creedemore, Colorado (a fictional town in the San Luis Valley that resembles Creede), where he will write and produce a play about the history of the town.
Ron McLarty will discuss Art in America at the Tattered Cover (LoDo) on Wednesday, July 16 at 7:30 p.m.
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Western Book Roundup
Nonprofit Bookstore Opens in Bend and New Missoula Lit Mag Launches
Idealistic optimism in the book world is not dead: David Jasper of the Bend Bulletin reported that Kilns Bookstore, a nonprofit enterprise, opened in Bend over the holiday weekend. (Via Shelf Awareness.) Jasper writes, "The opening comes just more than a month after The Book Barn, a 35-year-old shop in nearby downtown, closed due to declining sales and stiff competition from online retailers such as Amazon."
Rick Bass recently reviewed Stephen Trimble's new book, Bargaining for Eden: The Fight for the Last Open Spaces in America for the Boston Globe.
Denise Hill at the NewPages blog noted the arrival of the premier issue of a new literary magazine called The Oval, published by University of Montana undergraduates.
Also in the Roundup: the Virginia Quarterly Review publishes a new story by a Casper author, the Colorado Book Award finalists are announced, and Denver's David Sirota tours.
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From The New West Blog
Feds Lift Preble’s Mouse Protections in Wyoming
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service today announced the removal of Endangered Species Act protection for the Preble's meadow jumping in Wyoming. It amended the listing to indicate that Colorado's population remains threatened.
“This action will allow us to more precisely focus the protections of the Act specifically where these protections are needed,” said Steve Guertin, the Service’s Regional Director for the Mountain-Prairie Region. “The Service will continue to work with all of our partners to implement conservation actions that will benefit the mouse and help us achieve healthy populations across its entire range.”
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VOTE FOR HUNTING AND WILDLIFE, NOT THE NRA
Hunters, Look Beyond the End of Your Gun Barrel
Has anybody heard that we have a big election coming up? And that in the wake of the historic Scalia opinion in the D.C. v. Heller case, gun rights might be a big issue in the campaign, especially in key western "swing states" such as Colorado, Montana and New Mexico?
Republicans obviously believe they can win these and other western states on the gun issue alone. But I think most hunters can see beyond the end of their gun barrels.
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New West Book Review
Lonely Hearts: Steven Wingate’s “Wifeshopping”
Wifeshopping
By Steven Wingate
Houghton Mifflin, 208 pages, $12.95
The men in Steven Wingate's engrossing, entertaining debut story collection Wifeshopping are looking not just for love, but for marriage. They're not adverse to commitment, but they are particular, seeking the ideal woman for whom to forsake their days of youthful flings. This ultimate woman never quite materializes for Wingate's protagonists, who reject their girlfriends and fiancées because they don't like used clothes or don't agree that they should get rid of a stranger's mementos found buried in the backyard. But more often, their women reject them for being too pompous, for proposing marriage too early or for trying to rush them out of their rituals of mourning for past loves. Wingate, who lives in Lafayette, Colo. and teaches at the University of Colorado, sets his stories across the country, from Denver to Thermopolis, Wyo., to Rockport, Mass., to Miami (and vividly evokes each of these varied settings), but the problems that plague his characters are the same everywhere—they're not-quite-perfect guys trying to create something lasting and meaningful with not-quite-perfect women.
Steven Wingate will discuss his book at the Tattered Cover (LoDo) on July 30 at 7:30 p.m., and at Poor Richard's Bookstore in Colorado Springs on August 7 at 5 p.m.
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WHERE IS THE HOUSE BILL?
Congress Needs to Walk the Talk on Recreation Fees
On June 18, finally, Congress started seriously looking into the runaway recreational fee charging policy of federal agencies, primarily the U.S. Forest Service (FS), but it's still just talk. We've had enough of that, so let's just spike this pay-for-play policy, which is at best an extreme stretch of the legal authority given agencies by Congress--"given," sort of, I should say, since our elected leaders never even debated it or voted on it.
Even though it's moving at glacier speed, we at least have the Baucus-Crapo Bill, S. 2438, introduced in the Senate to spike the Recreation Access Tax. This is clearly a bipartisan issue, ripe for election-year politics. Now, we need a sponsor for a similar bill in the House.
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Western Book Roundup
Krakauer Delays Book, CutBank Takes on the World, and Bigfoot Field Guide is Announced
Best-selling Boulder author Jon Krakauer has withdrawn the manuscript for Hero, his book about Pat Tillman, according to Publishers Weekly (Via Slushpile.Net). Rachel Deahl writes that Doubleday had scheduled the book for an October release with a first printing of half a million copies.
Denise Hill at the always informative NewPages blog pointed out Ahmede Hussain's interview with Brian Kevin, Managing Editor of the University of Montana's CutBank. The interview ran in The Daily Star, which Hill says is "Bangladesh's largest circulating English-language newspaper." And according to Hussain, CutBank is "America's foremost literary magazine."
Also in the Roundup: Bigfoot spotted at the bookstore.
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New West Book Review
Short Stuff: Daniel Grandbois’ “Unlucky Lucky Days”
Unlucky Lucky Days
By Daniel Grandbois
BOA Editions
122, $14
On his website, Colorado fiction writer Daniel Grandbois describes his first book, Unlucky Lucky Days, as a "collection of nonsense and absurdist tales" so I guess I should have known better than to go seeking the real-life inspiration for one story, "Mansion," about a turtle who is "an executioner in retirement" and becomes stuck in a mansion he was trying to execute (if that make sense, you've got a more agile mind than I do). Grandbois writes that a librarian decided to take the mansion as a paperweight, and "that's where you can find the executioner right down to this day—in the fish tank near the children's books at the Boulder Public Library."
Daniel Grandbois will read from his book at the Tattered Cover (LoDo) at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, July 8. Munly and the Lepercalians will also perform.
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