Catch up with Terrain.org at an upcoming event, or view photos and listen to audio excerpts from recent Terrain.org events:
Upcoming Events
Literature, photography and art have long served as sources of inspiration that have helped fuel community-led conservation efforts to protected treasured landscapes, from the Columbia Gorge to the Grand Canyon. On March 27, Friends of the Columbia Gorge and Terrain.org: A Journal of the Built + Natural Environments will co-host a special evening (7-8:30 p.m.) exploring the intersection of artistic inspiration and community-led conservation initiatives with award-winning poet Jane Hirshfield and Oregon Poet Laureate Kim Stafford.
Held at Portland’s famed The Old Church concert hall, readings by Hirshfield and Stafford will be followed by a moderated panel and Q&A session exploring the intersection of artistic inspiration and community conservation efforts to protect treasured places.
All proceeds from the event will go to further Friends and Terrain.org public education and conservation efforts. For additional information on the event, speakers, or sponsoring organizations please visit gorgefriends.org or terrain.org.
Featured Artists
Jane Hirshfield, Poet, Essayist & Translator
Jane Hirshfield, an internationally renowned poet, essayist and translator, has lived in northern California since 1974 and is the author of eight much-honored poetry collections, two now-classic books of essays on poetry’s interior and civic working, and four books presenting world poets from past. Jane’s longstanding interest in the environment and science issues has led to residencies with Oregon’s H.J. Andrews Experimental Forest and with a neuroscience research program at University of California, San Francisco. Her reading at the inaugural March for Science in Washington, D.C., in 2017 continues with an ongoing outreach project, Poets for Science. She has been a visiting poet at UC Berkeley, Bennington College, University of Virginia, Stanford, and elsewhere.
Jane’s awards include fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Rockefeller and Guggenheim foundations, and the Academy of American Poets; the Poetry Center Book Award; and the California Book Award. Her most recent collection, The Beauty, was long-listed for the 2015 National Book Award; her 2001 book Given Sugar, Given Salt was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, and her 2006 book After was shortlisted for England’s premiere poetry honor, the T.S. Eliot Prize. Her work appears in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, The New York Times, and Poetry, and has been selected for ten editions of Best American Poetry. She was elected a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets in 2012.
Kim Stafford, Oregon Poet Laureate
Kim Stafford was born and grew up in Oregon. He is the author of a dozen books of poetry and prose, and editor of half a dozen others. His book Having Everything Right: Essays of Place won a citation for excellence from the Western States Book Awards in 1986. Kim has received creative writing fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, a Governor’s Arts Award, and the Stewart Holbrook Award from Literary Arts for his contributions to Oregon’s literary culture. His work has been featured on National Public Radio.
Kim holds a Ph.D. in medieval literature from the University of Oregon. He has worked as a printer, photographer, oral historian, editor, and visiting writer at a host of colleges and schools, and has also offered writing workshops in Italy, Scotland, and Bhutan. Kim lives in Portland, Oregon, with his wife and children. He is the second Stafford to serve as Oregon’s Poet Laureate; his father, William Stafford, held the appointment from 1974 to 1989.
Roundtable Respondents
Kevin Gorman, Executive Director, Friends of the Columbia Gorge
As executive director, Kevin Gorman oversees all the activities of Friends of the Columbia Gorge, as well as its land trust, which currently owns 1,000 acres of land. Kevin joined the organization in 1998 and during his tenure Friends has grown from eight staff and one office to 21 staff and three offices; net assets have grown from $750,000 to $18 million. Kevin helped lead the $4.5 million Cape Horn land acquisition campaign and assisted in creating two nonprofits in the Gorge: the Klickitat Trail Conservancy and the Cape Horn Conservancy. Kevin was previously the associate director of Oregon Natural Resources Council (now Oregon Wild) and has served as board president for the Coalition of Oregon Land Trusts and EarthShare Oregon, a workplace giving organization. Prior to his nonprofit adventures, Kevin was the creative director of an advertising agency in Detroit, MI.
Recent Events
October 12-14, 2017
ECO-poetry, Place & Technology Conference
Southern Utah University, Cedar City, Utah
Terrain.org editor-in-chief Simmons Buntin, poetry editor Derek Sheffield, poet Arthur Sze, and other editors and writers participated in the second annual conference that featured readings, writing workshops, an editors’ panel, a hike in Zion National Park, and more.
June 20-24, 2017
Association for the Study of Literature and Environment (ASLE) Biennial Conference
Wayne State University, Detroit Michigan
Terrain.org editor-in-chief Simmons Buntin, poetry editor Derek Sheffield, and other editors and contributors participated in this important conference on place-based writing and ecoliterature. Simmons moderated a gathering of magazine and literary journal editors titled “Editors’ Roundtable: Publishing Truth in a Post-Truth World” and also hosted a nonfiction reading at a local bookstore, featuring Elizabeth Dodd, John Lane, Kathryn Miles, and Nick Neely.
March 11-12, 2017
Tucson Festival of Books
The University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona (Booth #149)
Terrain.org editor-in-chief Simmons Buntin and fiction editor Amy Knight spoke with festival goers about the journal.
October 6-7, 2016
Poetry, Ecology, and Place in a Technological World
Southern Utah University, Cedar City, Utah
Terrain.org editor-in-chief Simmons Buntin served with Sherwin Bitsui is serving as keynote reader. Simmons also facilitated a workshop on publishing, with Pilgrimage editor Juan Morales. Read Simmons’s keynote, “Poetry, Ecology, and Place in a Technological World.”
March 30 – April 2, 2016
Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) Annual Conference and Bookfair
Los Angeles, California
Terrain.org staffed a booth and caused the usual mayhem.
October 28-31, 2015
NonfictioNOW
Northern Arizona University
Flagstaff, Arizona
Terrain.org staffed a table at the regular conference that gathers nonfiction writers, teachers, and students from around the world.
July 26 – August 1, 2015
Mount St. Helens Science Pulse
Mount St. Helens, Washington
Terrain.org editors Simmons Buntin, Andrew Gottlieb, and Derek Sheffield and Terrain.org editorial board members Elizabeth Dodd and Charles Goodrich, plus other writers and artists, join scientists in the field to explore and continue a science-art dialogue on the volcano 35 years after its last major eruption. Sponsored by the Spring Creek Project at Oregon State University and the U.S.D.A. Forest Service.
June 23-27, 2015
Association for the Study of Literature and Environment Biennial Conference
Moscow, Idaho
Terrain.org is staffing a table, participating in the author’s reception and other conference activities, and hosting a reading, “Resistance Movement”, featuring Chris Dombrowski, Keetje Kuipers, Nathaniel Perry, Catherine Quayle, and Derek Sheffield.
June 12-16, 2015
Kachemak Bay Writer’s Conference
Homer, Alaska
Terrain.org editor-in-chief Simmons Buntin is a poetry workshop instructor and panelist at this annual event for writers. Sponsored by Kachemak Bay Campus – Kenai Peninsula College and University of Alaska Anchorage.
February 27 – March 1, 2014
Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) Annual Conference and Bookfair
Seattle, Washington
Terrain.org’s literary reading (Prospecting, at the Klondike National Historical Park auditorium in Seattle’s Pioneer Square, Thursday, February 27, 7-8:30 p.m.), panel featuring the editors of Terrain.org, Orion, Guernica, So to Speak, and The Straddler (So You Want to Change the World? Literary Editors on Writing with a Social Purpose; Saturday morning) + table at Bookfair (Q21).
March 6-9, 2013
Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) Annual Conference and Bookfair
Boston, Massachusetts
Terrain.org’s literary reading with Hawk & Handsaw: The Journal of Creative Sustainability and Ecotone: Reimagining Place, sponsored and hosted by the Emerald Necklace Conservancy, featured wonderful readings from David Gessner, Sheryl St. Germain, Derek Sheffield, Cynthia Huntington, Joe Wilkins, Lauren Eggert-Crowe, and Bill Roorbach.
March 3, 2012
Reading: Terrain.org 15th Anniversary
Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) Annual Conference and Bookfair
Chicago, Illinois
We celebrated Terrain.org’s 15th anniversary with a reading at AWP, hosted by nonfiction editor Joshua Foster, and featuring readings by Elizabeth Dodd, Kathryn Miles, Lauret Savoy, and Andrew Wingfield.
February 5, 2011
“Live from AWP” Interview with Terrain.org editor-in-chief Simmons Buntin
Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) Annual Conference and Bookfair
Washington, D.C.
Terrain.org contributing editor Rafael Otto interviews Terrain.org’s editor-in-chief, live from the Terrain.org table.
April 7-10, 2010
Reading: “Wild Lives /Raucous Pens”, Bookfair Table, and More
Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) Annual Conference and Bookfair
Denver, Colorado
View photos from the Terrain.org / Hawk & Handsaw “Wild Lives / Raucous Pen” reading, AWP bookfair (Terrain.org table), and more.
September 24, 2009
Launch and Reading: Terrain.org Issue 24, co-sponsored by Center for Biological Diversity
The University of Arizona Poetry Center
Tucson, Arizona
A celebratory event for the launch of Issue 24. Borders + Bridges, with readings by Deborah Fries, Christopher Cokinos, Pamela Uschuk, and David Rothenberg.
Listen to the full issue launch and reading:
Please be patient, audio may load slowly. You may also download the mp3 file.
June 1-8, 2009
Terrain.org Editor-in-Chief Simmons Buntin Blogs ASLE
Association for the Study of Literature and Environment 2009 Biennial Conference
University of Victoria, Victoria, British Columbia
What happens when Terrain.org’s editor-in-chief spends a week at the ASLE conference in Victoria? Lots of photos and blogging, for starters.
February 2, 2008
Panel: The Future of Environmental Essay
Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) Annual Conference and Bookfair
New York City, New York
Moderated by Terrain.org editor-in-chief Simmons Buntin and featuring Alison Hawthorne Deming, David Gessner, David Rothenberg, and Lauret Savoy
January 31, 2008
Reading: Terrain.org 10th Anniversary
Cornelia Street Cafe
New York City, New York
Featuring Scott Edward Anderson, Teague Bohlen, Simmons B. Buntin, Scott Calhoun, Philip Fried, Deborah Fries, Suzanne Frischkorn, Donna J. Gelagotis Lee, Dennus Must, Shann Palmer, David Rothenberg, Andrew Wingfield, and Jake Adam York
For more information, or to have Terrain.org participate in your event, please contact us.
