http://www.newwest.net/index.php/city/main/C104/L104/ New West Network: The Voice of the Rocky Mountains en info@newwest.net Copyright 2009 Mon, 06 Jul 2009 07:00:50 MST Mon, 06 Jul 2009 07:00:50 MST This is an XML content feed. It is intended to be viewed in a newsreader or syndicated to another site. http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/newwest/city/saltlakecity/~3/RHQMp8gyEiY/ Wed, 01 Jul 2009 08:00:50 MST A few weeks ago I wrote about some creative ideas people are coming up with to support books in the midst of this changing media landscape. In keeping with that theme, the Mountains & Plains Independent Booksellers Association recently launched the Reading the West program, with the goal of helping bookstores promote books that are set in the West or those written by Western authors. The first featured books are New Mexico writer Rick Collignon's Madewell Brown and Austin-based Jaqueline Kelly's The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate. I spoke to MPIBA executive director Lisa Knudsen this week on the phone from her office in Fort Collins about the program. Knudsen said that the MPIBA started the Reading the West program because "in these troubled economic times, we were looking for projects and programs that are free to our member booksellers and are a potential win win win--for the publisher, bookseller, and author." "I shamelessly copied from my fellow regional bookseller associations," Knudsen said, noting that the Midwest and Great Lakes Bookseller associations sponsor similar programs. The Reading the West program makes advance copies of the featured books available to booksellers, as well as materials to use in their display and promotion. The authors are also available for readings at regional stores. The MPIBA board hopes publishers will begin to send them information about relevant forthcoming books to be considered for the program, but for the first selections, the members discussed among themselves what good books of regional interest they knew were coming out. "Rick Collignon is very popular in our region," Knudsen said, "and the committee was enthusiastic about his latest book. We also wanted to do what we could to promote independent publishers." Madewell Brown is published by Unbridled Books, an independent publisher based in Colorado. http://www.newwest.net/city/article/reading_the_west_gets_the_word_out_about_regional_books/C104/L104/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/newwest/city/saltlakecity/~3/q_UN9jLEfb0/ Tue, 30 Jun 2009 07:25:39 MST Beetle hysteria has raised its head again, and I am not talking about the Fab four. A prominent article in the New York Times titled "Tiny Beetle Adds New Dynamic to Forest Fire Control Efforts" quotes many foresters and others who suggest that beetle-kill trees across the West will create larger wildfires and by implications are "destroying" our forests. For instance, Montana's State Forester Bob Harrington said as much at conference recently, as in the article. While it may seem "intuitively obvious" that dead trees will lead to more fires, there is little scientific evidence to support the contention that beetle-killed trees substantially increases risk of large blazes. In fact, there is evidence to suggest otherwise. At the heart of this and many other media reports are flawed assumptions about fires, what constitutes a healthy forest, and the options available to humans in face of natural processes that are inconvenient and get in the way of our designs. http://www.newwest.net/city/article/beetle_hysteria_again/C104/L104/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/newwest/city/saltlakecity/~3/YoBlZIUoMNA/ Sun, 14 Jun 2009 08:00:18 MST Falconer on the Edge: A Man, His Birds, and the Vanishing Landscape of the American West by Rachel Dickinson Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 220 pages, $24 In Falconer on the Edge, Rachel Dickinson gives readers an in-depth look at a subculture that many people may not be aware existed. Falconers are an intense, passionate, tight-knit group of bird-loving hunters, and they subdivide themselves according to the type of bird they fly, from those who favor hunting sage grouse with gyrfalcon-peregrine hybrids ("an überbird [with] stamina and speed and beauty") to those who fly hawks to catch squirrels and jackrabbits. The falconers Dickinson depicts remind me of a more athletic and outdoorsy version of Trekkies, with their conventions, cliques, private jargon derived from Norman French, and the way they are often misunderstood by outsiders. Although falconry ("a loose term [that] refers to flying any kind of raptor or bird of prey") originated perhaps 3,500 years ago in the Middle East, spread through Asia and Europe, and didn't catch on in North America until the twentieth century, it seems a pastime tailor-made for the American West, as it requires a lot of open space and abundant game. With all the care and training that a bird of prey demands, not to mention the need for the falconer to be in top condition to run through fields after his bird, it might be the most labor and time-intensive variety of hunting, which is why so few practice it. Dickinson writes, "Today there are approximately forty-five hundred licensed falconers in the United States, and two to three thousand of them belong to [the North American Falconers Association]." Judging from the portraits in Dickinson's book, there are no casual falconers. http://www.newwest.net/city/article/birdman_rachel_dickinsons_falconer_on_the_edge/C104/L104/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/newwest/city/saltlakecity/~3/uNLzluAi0u8/ Sat, 13 Jun 2009 03:00:02 MST Utah native Ron Carlson has been publishing acclaimed novels and short stories for over three decades, and in recent years he's hit a stride, with two novels, Five Skies and the new The Signal back-to-back. Carlson directed the Creative Writing program at Arizona State University for many years and three years ago became the Creative Writing program director at the University of California at Irvine. The Signal, which Carlson wrote at the Ucross Foundation in Wyoming, is the action-packed tale of a divorced couple who go backpacking in the Wind River Mountains and run into all sorts of trouble, including some unfriendly meth-runners who poach elk on the side. I recently spoke with Carlson about his new novel, which he started because he "wanted to stand up behind [his] goddamn pickup truck again," and about how "camping is essentially about when things go wrong." New West: Is The Signal just an elaborate way for you to scare other potential campers off of your favorite hiking trail? Ron Carlson: You know, it has that. I didn't mean to scare everybody. NW: In the front of the book, you advise people, "If I was going to go into the Wind Rivers today, I would use the Bears Ears trailhead and I would go before September 10." But after reading about all the perils that Mack and Vonnie face, nobody is going to want to go on this trail. RC: I just wanted to make sure that no one went after then, because you can run into snow. NW: I think I'd rather run into snow than some of the things that Mack and Vonnie run into. RC: I don't want anybody to get snowed in the way I did, and I've written about that. What I really wanted to do was have my vicarious experience and write a little love letter to the mountains, which I'm not in enough. I just got on fire for that and wrote this outdoor book. http://www.newwest.net/city/article/an_interview_with_ron_carlson_about_the_signal/C104/L104/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/newwest/city/saltlakecity/~3/rVui0sTsths/ Tue, 09 Jun 2009 13:51:41 MST Why should towns in the West change the way they grow? And why should planners design healthier, greener communities? Because if they don't, they'll suffer and fail. Dire as that answer sounds, it's sparked something worth celebrating: a planning revolution and a move to sustainability across the West, according to land-use and green planning expert Christopher Duerksen. http://www.newwest.net/city/article/adjusted_development_saving_the_world_with_sustainable_growth/C104/L104/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/newwest/city/saltlakecity/~3/Ye-ttAyxGB8/ Mon, 30 Mar 2009 06:00:43 MST Uranium: War, Energy, and the Rock that Shaped the World by Tom Zoellner Viking, 337 pages, $26.95 In his new book Uranium, Tom Zoellner follows the trail of an element that was considered useless until less than a century ago, when scientists discovered how to unleash its power, and is now one of the most coveted and feared substances in the world. In the course of telling the story of uranium, Zoellner travels across the globe, visiting mining operations in the Congo, the Czech Republic, and the American West, and investigating how this rock has influenced people's behavior in Japan, Australia, the Middle East, Europe and elsewhere. The result is a detailed, alternately entertaining and frightening account of how uranium has affected the world to date, and how it is shaping the future. Zoellner writes that he became interested in researching uranium when he was camping at Temple Mountain mesa in Utah and discovered mine entrances there: "The valley floor had that ragged and hard-used look common to many other pieces of wilderness in the American West that had been rich in gold or silver in the nineteenth century. A braiding of trails was etched into the dirt, and the slabs of an abandoned stone cabin and shattered lengths of metal pipe were down there, too, now almost obscured in the dust. The place had been devoured quickly and then spat out, with a midden of antique garbage left behind." He discovered that during World War II, uranium for nuclear weapons had been mined there. Tom Zoellner will discuss his book in Tucson at Antigone Books on Friday, April 17 (7 p.m.) and he will give the keynote address at the U2009 Conference in Keystone, Colo. on May 10 (12 p.m.) http://www.newwest.net/city/article/the_mightiest_rock_tom_zoellners_uranium/C104/L104/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/newwest/city/saltlakecity/~3/vZLMhNjwsPQ/ Wed, 11 Mar 2009 08:00:36 MST Lisa Knudsen, director of the Mountains & Plains Independent Booksellers Association recently wrote in the organization's newsletter about the fate of a couple of Colorado bookstores. Craig Johnson, the owner of Clear Creek Books in Golden, Colo. was having trouble keeping his business afloat. After some media attention about the store's pending closing, the folks in Golden rallied around the bookstore, and according to Knudsen, one anonymous donor wrote Johnson a check for $20,000. Johnson hopes to keep the bookstore running, but says he won't succeed unless people in Golden start shopping there instead of "stopping off at the Barnes & Noble after work in Denver or ordering from Amazon at 3 a.m." Meanwhile, the owners of the Book Rack in Fort Collins will close their current shop on March 31 and move to a new location, opening in Old Town Fort Collins as Old Firehouse Books in April. (Via Shelf Awareness.) The people at Unbridled Books say they have a Southwestern treasure on their hands in writer Rick Collignon. According to publisher Fred Ramey, "There's a great deal of cultural significance in what he's doing." Unbridled has published several of Collignon's books, and the latest, Madewell Brown, is due to hit shelves May 5. To spread the word, Collignon and Ramey have embarked on a pre-publication "The Author As Artifact Tour," with stops across the Southwest, including a visit to Denver and Boulder earlier this week. The goal is to introduce the author to booksellers and readers who may not have heard of him before. They will be at Moby Dickens in Taos today, and tomorrow they'll travel to Collected Works and Garcia Street Books in Santa Fe and Bookworks in Albuquerque. Ramey has uploaded the first entry in his video diary of the tour here, and you can follow his travels with Collignon on Twitter @FredRamey. (By the way, I'm Twittering these days, too.) Watch for my review of Madewell Brown in May. Also in the Roundup: The Tucson Books Festival, the passing of poet Bill Holm, ABA Indie Choice Book Award Nominees, and this year's John Burroughs Award winner for Best Published Nature Essay. http://www.newwest.net/city/article/needs_a_title1/C104/L104/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/newwest/city/saltlakecity/~3/aOcvtPmOxlQ/ Wed, 04 Mar 2009 08:00:08 MST Last Friday the Rocky Mountain News printed its last edition. With the close of the paper, another great books section vanished forever. I sincerely hope that Patti Thorn, the Rocky's gracious, smart Books Editor finds a new home for her talents soon. I wrote book reviews for the Rocky for over eight years, and read the paper every morning since I was a kid. (I went out on a good note, with a review of the great T.C. Boyle's latest novel, The Women.) I feel like I lost a friend. The Denver Post picked up a handful of the Rocky's reporters, but the vast majority of its 200 newsroom employees are out of work, not to mention the many freelancers who wrote for the paper. Reporter Nancy Mitchell wrote an inside scoop on the Rocky's demise for Salon this week, "The Death Throes of My Newspaper." This economy is really starting to suck. Thankfully, as Thorn wrote in one of her last Rocky columns, a good coping mechanism is to bury your nose in a book. On a happier note, the Center for the American West honored Montana writer Thomas McGuane with its Wallace Stegner Award last week. Patricia Limerick, the Center's resident genius, interviewed McGuane about his life, and he proved a worthy raconteur, regaling the crowd with stories about the time he worked on a movie with Marlon Brando, "The Missouri Breaks." Brando was balking about starring in the film, so the movie's director convinced a "crooked plumber" to go to Brando's house and tell him his plumbing needed to be completely redone, a project so big he'd need to make a movie to finance it. McGuane worked on script edits at Brando's house, as Brando's yellow-eyed pet wolf sat under the writing desk, looking him over. Also in the Roundup: More McGuane, why Cormac McCarthy agreed to Oprah's interview request, and the University of Utah celebrates Wallace Stegner's 100th birthday. http://www.newwest.net/city/article/saying_goodbye_to_the_rocky_and_thomas_mcguane_and_wallace_stegner_honored/C104/L104/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/newwest/city/saltlakecity/~3/GG-HXseHL9g/ Wed, 11 Feb 2009 08:23:27 MST In time for Valentine's Day, I bring you a story of books and love: Shelf Awareness noted Caitlin Hamilton Summie's piece on the blog She Is Too Fond of Books, in which she writes about her wedding reception that was held at the LoDo Tattered Cover a few years ago. Hamilton Summie is the Marketing Director for Colorado-based publisher Unbridled Books, and she writes that she and her husband had a difficult time finding an affordable location in downtown Denver for their reception, until her friend, the events planner at the Tattered Cover, suggested she host it at the store. She writes: "Everybody was charmed. It was different, there was plenty of space, the building is old, and people from out of town got a real taste of the city. Book fans browsed the shelves. We never bothered the staff or customers. I'm not certain, unless you saw my husband and I squeak through the main doors, or heard the faint sound of jazz, that anyone would have ever known we were all there." University of Idaho professor Brandon Schrand won this year's Carter Prize for the Essay sponsored by Shenandoah. Also in the Roundup: The winner of The Wasatch Journal's Quick-Draw Story Contest, Illiterate launches its website, and the Boulder Book Store hosts a slew of events. http://www.newwest.net/city/article/love_amidst_the_book_stacks_and_regional_writers_win_prizes/C104/L104/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/newwest/city/saltlakecity/~3/DeSwzM8ZBds/ Thu, 29 Jan 2009 10:33:58 MST They met at a poker game in an old brick house on the edge of Moab, Utah. Jim Stiles was a young volunteer at Arches National Park, a sometimes-artist shacking up in a desert trailer owned by the Park Service. The grizzled man across the table, wearing a furry state trooper's hat, had done the same years before, and he nodded at Stiles choice of semi-employment. "Good," the man growled. "We need more radicals at the Park Service." Stiles tells the story driving through Moab behind the wheel of his Subaru Forester. As he talks, he imitates his mentor and friend, legendary desert crusader Edward Abbey, with a gruff voice and furrowed brow. Stiles had come West in search of this curmudgeonly conservationist. He looked for him first in remote Wolf Hole, Ariz., where, in a mischievous author's note, Abbey once claimed to reside. Stiles found no Abbey, no wolf, not even a hole. http://www.newwest.net/city/article/after_20_years_zephyr_blows_out_of_moab/C104/L104/