Fishtrap

July 9, 2010

Today I head out to Northeast Oregon for a writing conference and retreat at Fishtrap. I’m one of the five fellows (that sounds funny… but I mean myself and four others have a fellowship for the week)– and I’ll be taking a writing seminar/workshop/class three hours every morning with the writer of one of the best books I’ve read in the last decade: Karen Fisher, author of A Sudden Country, which i’ve blogged about here before. Please check out the book– it’s a masterpiece.

There will also be readings, music, a film about poet Gary Snyder (who will also be there), book signings, and this amazing ‘gathering’ the last weekend where the whole town, community is invited. We’ll be at Camp Wallowa close to Enterprise, Ore. (pic of Snyder and Allen Ginsberg from Human Flower Project).

I don’t really know what to expect. I’ll be in a cabin, out in the middle of nearly nowhere, surrounded by nature. Oh, and there will not be any internet and very little cell phone service.

I’m hoping for a week of really getting back to the book, for introducing new characters, for discovering new plot twists and turns.

And here’s a poem from Gary Snyder:

How Poetry Comes to Me
by Gary Snyder

It comes blundering over the
Boulders at night, it stays
Frightened outside the
Range of my campfire
I go to meet it at the
Edge of the light