Lit Conference Preview

In a few days, I will be sitting in the shadow of the Grand Tetons, collecting nuts and bolts in an imaginary pail labeled “Writing Advice,” basking in the glow of literati humming like engines all around me, and generally getting my ass handed to me during a one-on-one manuscript critique session. I am both excited and scared spitless at what awaits me during the 2011 Jackson Hole Writers Conference.

Technically speaking, I won’t be in the literal shadow of the Grand Tetons since the conference will be held in the Jackson Hole Center for the Arts 15 miles away in Jackson, but it sounded way cooler to start the sentence like that—implying conferees would be sitting cross-legged in a half-circle surrounded by a blaze of purple and red wildflowers while Brady Udall tossed handfuls of nuts and bolts at us—behind his head, the purple mountain majesty of the Grand thrusting its granite bosom toward the clouds. Most likely we’ll be sitting on chairs in windowless rooms, our pale ivory-tower faces illumined by fluorescence, rather than in a plein air field with hawk-screams and river currents pulling our attention from Mr. Udall’s stories of how he went about researching Mormonism for his latest novel “The Lonely Polygamist.”

Daily Yonder Feature

It is hard to find anyone at home in Lost Springs, Wyoming.

I should know – I’ve tried, on several occasions. A few years ago my motive to visit Lost Springs was to hang out at the Lost Bar as part of my “research project” to visit and document some of Wyoming’s remote watering holes-cum community centers. The Lost Bar was on a route, more or less, between the Western Saloon in Glendo and the Bill Yacht Club in Bill (population somewhere between 5 and 10, depending on the railroad schedule).

If the name Lost Springs sounds familiar, it may be because the town made national news of late. The victim of an egregious misapplication of arithmetic, Lost Springs was credited in the 2000 census with a population of only one, instead of the actual count of four. Many passing motorists’ heads have swiveled at the Population One sign on moderately busy U.S. Highway 18/20. And as goes the head, so goes the car, bewitching travelers into taking pictures of each other standing in front of the sign. Once they’ve stopped, they can’t resist the allure of the Lost Bar, the Lost Springs Post Office & Antique Store, the inviting grassy town park complete with swing set, and the pleasant public restroom. 

Guest Column

The Wallow Fire is now the largest in recent Arizona history, encompassing more than 500,000 acres. The media discussion of the fire often leads to misinformation and misunderstanding of wildfires, and feeds the political agenda of politicians and industries from developers to the timber industry.

One of the problems of media coverage is that most reporters have little or no training in ecology, much less in-depth understanding of wildfire ecology. Context for large blazes like the Wallow Fire are often missing from reportage. The emphasis on fuels makes for easy reportage, but misses some important nuances that lead to simplistic solutions—the common refrain that if we only logged more of the forest such fires would be prevented.

It also tends to reinforce the idea that thinning is needed in all forest ecosystems, when in fact, many fire regimes in higher elevations and more northern locations are more or less still within historic norms.

Furthermore, there is a tendency to focus on the most unfortunate losses which can exaggerate the perception that such fires have done a lot of “damage” to people, seldom holding people accountable for their own losses because they have chosen to build in a fire-prone landscape. 

New West Film

In the ‘30s and ‘40s, a Salt Lake City construction worker turned racecar driver transformed the notion of what a car was capable of, and he transformed the Bonneville Salt Flats from a plain of death into a landscape of possibility.

For most Americans, Ab Jenkins isn’t exactly a household name, but many of the speed records he set in his handcrafted car, the Mormon Meteor, still hold 70 years after he set them racing across the Utah wasteland.

Salt Lake City director Curt Wallin presents Ab Jenkins’ story in The Boys of Bonneville: Racing on a Ribbon of Salt. Trained as a biologist, Wallin devoted many of his early films to the natural world. A film about fast cars, he says, it’s a bit of a departure. But when the car’s current owner approached him about making the film, he says, “I couldn’t resist doing this.”

The Boys of Bonneville has it Colorado premier Saturday, June 11 at 10 a.m. at the Breckenridge Festival of Film. The Festival runs June 9-12.

Site News

Lawyers and baristas, dentists and dog walkers: In the Rockies, we all have something in common in our amazing, coveted surroundings. We live here and work here because we want to play here.

That’s what our readers tell us in every survey we do. Regardless of your income bracket, your education, where you were born or how you came to live or love it here, by and large, you are outdoor people interested in outdoor recreation.

We at New West get it. We’re outdoor people, too. That’s why we’re excited to introduce a new part of our site, Adventure Rockies (newwest.net/adventure). It’s a curated blog, populated by both experienced and novice writers and photographers from Montana, Colorado, Idaho, Wyoming, Utah and New Mexico. They have diverse interests and styles, from river guide Ryan Bentley in Idaho to guidebook author and backcountry snowboarder Brian Hurlbut in Montana to pro freelancer and active mom Jill Adler in Utah: All bring a unique voice to our site.

Western Book Roundup

Gregory Hill, who works as a book buyer at the University of Denver’s Penrose Library, is one of three finalists in the general fiction category for this year’s Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award. According to the contest website, Hill’s novel, East of Denver, “tells the story of Shakespeare Williams, who returns to his family’s farm in eastern Colorado to find his widowed, senile father living in squalor. Facing the loss of the farm, Shakespeare hatches a plot with his father and a motley crew of his former high school classmates to rob the local bank.”

Greg Glasgow recently interviewed Hill for the University of Denver blog. Glasgow writes:

“The story is based on Hill’s own past growing up in Joes, Colo. (called Dorsey, Colo., in the book), and his more recent experiences watching his father’s battle against Alzheimer’s disease.”

Also in the Roundup: The winners of the Reading the West Book Award, Filming on the adaptation of Jess Walter’s The Financial Lives of the Poets begins in August, a poetry contest sponsored by the Denver County Fair, and regional book tours for Karl Marlantes, Janet Fox, Emma Donaghue, and Justin Cronin.

Bob Wire Has a Point (It's Under His Cowboy Hat)

From record snowfall last winter to relentless rains this spring, state agencies and weather forecasters have been warning us for months that when melt-off begins in earnest, we’ll be looking at ten pounds of river in a five pound bag. But how can anyone be surprised that their driveway is now a boat ramp? All you needed to do was consult the mother of all weather forecasting tools, the Holy Bible.

Food and Ag Bites

Sen. Debbie Stabenow, who chairs the Senate’s Agriculture committee, announced this week that the first of many field hearings on the 2012 Farm Bill will be held in her home state of Michigan next Tuesday, May 31.

In the run up to the meeting, there has been a flurry of news and commentary around the agriculture spending in general and the Farm Bill in particular. This week’s roundup rounds it all up.

Elsewhere in the food and ag world this week: food safety, bee colony collapse, farmers’ markets, farm runoff and what rose breeding has to say about plant patents.

New West Film

Health Calhoun was an Airborne Ranger serving in Iraq when a rocket blast destroyed both his legs. After training with the group Challenge Aspen, Calhoun found new life as an adaptive ski racer. In just four years, he went from a never-ever ski racer to one of the fastest disabled ski racers in the world.

He shares his story with Carbondale, Colo., photographer Tyler Stableford, who directed a short film about Calhoun’s experience called “The Fall Line.” Stableford joined Calhoun as he trained for the Vancouver Paralympics, but through interviews, Calhoun narrates the film himself and brings viewers along on a journey of discovery as a terrible tragedy unfolds into what he calls a blessing.

For Stableford, a magazine and commercial photographer named by Men’s Journal as one of the world’s top adventure photographers, the project had him branching out from still photography to video.

The film shows at Telluride MountainFilm on Memorial Day weekend, part of a weekend of films that celebrate the environment and social change.

Western Book Roundup

Last week two regional organizations announced the finalists for their annual book awards. I’ve listed the finalists below with links to New West’s reviews of the books and author interviews. First, the Mountains and Plains Independent Booksellers Association announced the finalists for its Reading the West Book Awards (that’s the new name of the MPIBA’s longstanding book award series).

The shortlist in the Adult category:

• Finders Keepers: A Tale of Archaeological Plunder and Obsession by Craig Childs (Little, Brown and Co.)

• The Wake of Forgiveness by Bruce Machart (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)

• Volt: Stories by Alan Heathcock (Graywolf Press)

• Fur, Fortune, and Empire: The Epic History of the Fur Trade in America by Eric Jay Dolin (W.W. Norton)

• The Ringer by Jenny Shank (The Permanent Press)

Also in the Roundup: The finalists for the High Plains Book Awards, The Whitefish Review seeks donations for its ninth issue, The High Desert Journal announces a poetry prize, and the tally on how many books Oprah helped David Wroblewski and Cormac McCarthy sell.