Excerpt from my novel at The Provo Orem Word

The Provo Orem Word, an online venue for artists in the Provo-Orem area of Utah, has published an excerpt from my novel The Pictograph Murders (Signature Books 2004) in this year’s nature-themed issue.   You can read the excerpt and rest of the issue here, or click on the picture.   Also, check out the ad for The Pictograph Murders and Wilderness Interface Zone on the inside of the first page.   My son Saul designed that.   I think it’s cool. The links weren’t working today but POW is trying to remedy that.

This issue also contains an interview with Terry Tempest Williams, who will perform a reading from her book Finding Beauty in a Broken World at Brigham Young University on March 17.   This occasion interests me for a couple of reasons, one of them being that Williams has not read at BYU in over 20 years, although faculty members like Eugene England were interested in inviting her.   I think this event long overdue and am glad for it.   If I were up in that area, I’d attend.

Beside Williams’ interview, there’s also a nice piece by George Handley titled “Secret Memory.”   George published an excerpt of his book Home Waters: A Year of Recompenses on the Provo River here on Wilderness Interface Zone.

The issue contains many other gems, including the eighth chapter of an epic poem titled “Rough Stone, Rolling Water” by Dennis Marden Clark.

The Provo Orem Word is an online literary magazine that publishes a nature-themed issue every March, but Rebecca Packard, the publisher/editor, is happy to take submissions all year long at submissions@provooremword.org. The ‘zine publishes fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction.   For submission guidelines and a list of The Provo Orem Word’s other themes for this year, email Rebecca at the above address.     Rebecca says, “Not being affiliated with the area will not hurt an author’s chances of being published.”

I’m not a resident of Utah Valley anymore; it didn’t hurt mine!

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What’s really wild

A little over four and a half years ago my family moved from Payson City in Utah County to a new home at the desert’s edge in San Juan County, Utah.   Living on the Colorado Plateau has been something of a dream come true. Besides reintroducing me to a more natural (for me) environment, living here helps me cope with the pressures of caring for a high maintenance, special needs child.   Even on days when I can’t leave the yard I can walk out on the rickety second-story porch and see the trunk of a rainbow standing only a few hundred feet away or  take in  the silky ripple of cloud shadow and sunshine across the pinyon-juniper forest stretching miles to the south.   Thunderstorms in Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, and southeast Utah ring and electrify our kiva-roof sky.   At night, a very good view of the Milky Way’s spiraling embrace and the ceaseless anthesis and waning of moonlight keep imagination astir nearly until the moment I fall asleep.

Summer reading

I’m getting ready to crack the spine on Terry Tempest Williams’ latest book, Finding Beauty in a Broken World.   Over a year ago, I heard her read a little from the pre-publication draft and attended a workshop she conducted.   It was  apparent to me that she had changed her approach to her audience somewhat as well as to people she does not expect to be in her audience but are part of  her expressed concern with  the stances human beings take in or  against nature.        

If anybody would like to join me in reading this book, we could discuss it here on WIZ as we go along.   If nobody else wishes to read with me, then I’ll put up a review, probably in August.   It takes me a while to get through a book because I take copious notes but I’ll try to keep up a reasonable pace.

Also, if anybody has reading  suggestions  for nature-themed fiction, non-fiction nature writing (ex. Richard Louv’s Last Child in the Woods), or literary science or nature writing, including nature-themed poetry, Mormon or un-, please list them in the comments.

If you would like to read my Field Notes from  Williams’ writing  workshop, go here.