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Coming soon! My new book!

The Fountain: How Humans Use, Misuse and Manipulate Water and the Creek That Became a River

will be published by Torrey House Press in October 2024

Colorado’s Fountain Creek is one of the most human-dominated water systems I know of. Over the years, the Fountain has been dammed, diverted, poisoned, re-routed, mapped, named, channelized, filled with physical and human debris, reduced, augmented, confused, litigated, studied, stolen, replaced, known, unknown, forgotten, misunderstood, blamed, monitored, sampled, screen, broken and tamed. More than anything else, humans have altered the very nature of the Fountain, pumping water from Colorado’s western slope into the Fountain watershed, making what once was a creek into a river, and threatening to make it a dry creek yet again. The Fountain is the poster child Anthropocene watershed.

This book will be a work of contemporary ‘nature writing’ sporting a healthy mix of historical, geologic, economic, literary and anthropological ponderings. The book will explore and engage with the complexity of needs, values, and desires facing urban and post-pastoral waterways in the American West. The goal of this book is to place the Fountain Creek in its full ecological, historical and socio-cultural context while looking both to the past and the future for creative solutions to the problems faced by river and human alike. I see this book as thought-provoking, envelope-pushing and hopefully controversial, something to be argued over. I’m looking to “shift the Overton Window” when it comes to our relationship with Western waters.

LOOK FOR THE FOUNTAIN IN October 2024!

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Nature Writing Class Starts This Satuday

I’m happy to announce that several folks signed up this week for my 4-week nature writing class at the Taos Land Trust’s Rio Fernando Park! So we will have a good group to explore how environmental destruction impacts nature writing.

Should be fun!

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Place by Place – A New Kind of Nature Writing Course Offered in Taos, New Mexico

Writing has long been a means of exploring, connecting & understanding the natural world. Nature writing provides an opportunity to build a sense of place within a larger community. But how does environmental destruction impact that connection & sense of place? Have poisoned rivers, fracking, broken ecosystems, mass extinction & climate change altered the very nature of nature? How does environmental destruction impact the essence of nature writing?

Beginning on May 5, 2018 and running thru June 2, 2018 I will host a nature writing workshop in conjunction with SOMOS, the Society of the Muse of the Southwest, Taos’ literary society. It runs from 8am-12pm each Saturday morning with the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend off.

This 4-week course redefines traditional definitions of nature and nature writing. It looks at the complexity of environmental issues, reviews various forms of expression & asks us to reflect on our own experiences of nature & expand those reflections into coherent and well-formed essays using concrete details, point of view & vivid scenes. The course will focus on Taos Land Trust’s Rio Fernando Park, a damaged piece of agricultural land located in the center of Taos, New Mexico. With guest speakers and guides we will study these 20 acres from a historical, ecological & public policy perspective and gear our work towards eventual publication.

Praise from Past Students

“What a blessing it was to take time out for focused, creative time that took us out of ourselves and our schedules.  I enjoyed, and benefited from, the balance of information, observation and exercises.” – Marylinn

“I really enjoyed your class and learned a lot.  I thought your class was very well organized and the exercises were interesting.” – Phaedra

 “What I liked about your class is that you kept it interesting and on topic. Something I greatly appreciate. It moved along and scattering lecture with exercise kept it lively. I also found your attitude and smile engaging and relaxing, even though you challenged us I never felt any judgment coming from you. Thank you.” – Jo

“Such a pleasure absorbing every moment of being in the natural world in such a unique way. Every exercise was a treasure. The class was a joy.”  – Susan

~ ~ ~ ~

Time:  8.00am – 12.00pm, Saturdays, May 5, 12, 19 and June 2nd 2018

Location: Rio Fernando Park, Taos Land Trust, 410 LA POSTA ROAD, TAOS, NEW MEXICO 87571(www.taoslandtrust.org)

Price: $200/SOMOS members, $230/Non-members, minimum 5, maximum 12 students. Deposit of $25 due one week prior

To Register: Contact SOMOS, 575-758-0081, or somos@somostaos.org

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Guided by Its Light – Nature Writing – May 2018

Guided By Its Light – Nature Writing Workshops with Jim O’Donnell

Put it before them briefly so they will read it, clearly so they will appreciate it, picturesquely so they will remember it, and above all, accurately so they will be guided by its light.  – Joseph Pulitzer

Writing has long been a means of exploring and understanding the natural world. Nature writing also provides an opportunity to personally reconnect with the natural world and build a sense of place for our larger community. This intensive weekend course looks at how the work of writing nature helps to re-establish a sense of place, recalibrates our internal compass to what is vital in life and raises awareness of both the human place in nature and the impact humans have on the natural world. This course involves numerous active writing and observing excercises. We will review the various forms of nature writing (essays, articles, poetry, journals), discuss critical thinking skills, ask how and why, reflect on our own experiences of nature and expand those reflections into coherent and well-formed essays, stories and poems using concrete details, point of view and creating vivid scenes. We want to move from being inarticulate about nature to a lyrical precision about the natural world.The workshop runs for two consecutive days and takes place outside. The workshop involves active hiking and exploration.

NEXT Nature Writing Workshops : May 2018. Taos, New Mexico, USA. Contact SOMOS for more information: 575.758.0081 or somos@somostaos.org