2016 Word Up! Panel Discussions
NEW IN 2016 ... A tandem of talks with authors and journalists!
[ Huge success ... Sure to be repeated! ]
PANEL #1
Saturday • May 21 • 10 to 11:30am • Wilkinson Public Library
Environmental Journalism: The State of the Art
As advocates—through stories— for improving and sustaining the quality of life for all living beings (including the earth itself), writers on the natural world have a lot on their shoulders. While an essay on a species doing wondrous things against the odds is inspiring, the point is to have those words and research read and lodged into the consciousness of today's global populace so that all have an equitable chance at survival in the future. Has the negative outlook on the current state of the news and the media pinched off the air that feeds their passionate stories brought home from every corner of the world to our fingertips? Hear from those in the field, in both the print and digital realms, about the "start of the art" and what readers can expect in the coming years as complex environmental issues continue to fight for space amid the noise. There's really good work being done, even as attention spans wane and resource fatigue sets in.
THE PANELISTS
Judy Muller
Judy Muller, a graduate of Mary Washington College, is a Professor of Journalism at the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism and is known as an award-winning television correspondent and a regular contributor to NPR’s Morning Edition. Working for ABC News in the 90s, she covered the Rodney King trial and ensuing riots, the Northridge earthquake, and the O.J. Simpson criminal and civil trials. As part of a "Nightline" team, she received an Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award for coverage of the Los Angeles riots and an Emmy Award for coverage of the Simpson case. In 2011, she received a second duPont-Columbia Award, as well as a Peabody, for her reporting on medical marijuana dispensaries in Southern California. Her most recent book is Emus Loose in Egnar: Big Stories from Small Towns, taking the reader on a grassroots tour of rural American newspapers, from an Indian reservation in Montana to the Alaska tundra to Martha’s Vineyard, and discovers that many weeklies are not just surviving, but thriving. In these small towns, stories can range from club news to Klan news, from broken treaties to broken hearts, from banned books to escaped emus. This book shows us that these little stories create a mosaic of American life that tells us a great deal about who we are, what moves us, angers us, amuses us. Filled with characters both quirky and courageous, it’s a reminder that there is a different kind of bottom line in the hearts of journalists who keep churning out good stories, week after week, for the corniest of reasons: that our freedoms depend on it. As one studying the ever-changing news industry, her double perspective as a reporter and a longtime part-time Norwood resident is invaluable to this discussion.
Alec Jacobsen
Alec has worked as a photographer around the world and was recently selected as a National Geographic Young Explorer. Before moving to Telluride, he was the Editor in Chief of ArtsRiot.com, building the site from a blog into an online culture magazine. He graduated from Amherst College in 2012, where he studied Anthropology, French and Arabic. Currently, he is the Executive Director of the San Juan Independent, an online news source that is also a member of the Institute for Nonprofit News, aiming to elevate journalism in the San Juan mountains by focusing on the slower-moving scoops that span the region. The San Juan’s environment, economy and community are more complex than a glimpse of a local council meeting can capture. SJI’s goal is to produce rich accounts that analyze the full arc of an issue, operating with absolute editorial freedom in order to produce entirely unbiased journalism.
Amy Irvine
Amy is a sixth-generation Utahan and longtime wilderness advocate, who for 7 years worked for the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance. Her work has appeared in Orion, Triquarterly, Climbing, High Desert Journal and in numerous western, nature and environmental anthologies. Her first book, Making A Difference: Stories of how our Outdoor Industry and Individuals are Working to Preserve America’s Natural Places, was one of three books featured in the Washington Post for Earth Day 2002. Her second book, Trespass: Living at the Edge of the Promised Land , received both the Orion Book Award and Colorado Book Award—while the Los Angeles Times wrote that it "might very well be Desert Solitaire's literary heir." Her 2010 essay in Orion—“Spectral Light”—was a finalist for the Pen Award in Journalism. Amy recently completed a faculty fellowship in Southern New Hampshire University’s low-residency MFA program, where she now teaches literary non-fiction. She is the founding director of the festival’s Literary Burlesque.
Peter Heller
Peter is a longtime contributor to NPR, and a contributing editor at Outside Magazine, Men’s Journal, and National Geographic Adventure. He is an award winning adventure writer and the author of four books of literary nonfiction. He lives in Denver. Heller was born and raised in New York. He attended high school in Vermont and Dartmouth College in New Hampshire where he became an outdoorsman and whitewater kayaker. He traveled the world as an expedition kayaker, writing about challenging descents in the Pamirs, the Tien Shan mountains, the Caucuses, Central America and Peru. At the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where he received an MFA in fiction and poetry, he won a Michener fellowship for his epic poem “The Psalms of Malvine.” He has worked as a dishwasher, construction worker, logger, offshore fisherman, kayak instructor, river guide, and world class pizza deliverer. For a list of his books, click here.
Craig Childs (moderator)
Craig is an author and explorer who lives in Norwood where he’s been writing like a madman. He has published more than a dozen critically acclaimed books, including House of Rain: Tracking a Vanished Civilization Across the American Southwest and The Secret Knowledge of Water: Discovering the Essence of the American Desert. His most recent book, Apocalyptic Planet, won the Orion Book Award and he has twice won the Sigurd F. Olson Nature Writing Award. His work has appeared in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Men's Journal, and Outside. The New York Times says "Childs's feats of asceticism are nothing if not awe inspiring: he's a modern-day desert father." He has been called a born storyteller by the New York Sun, and the Los Angeles Times says his writing is like pure oxygen, and "stings like a slap in the face." An occasional commentator for NPR’s Morning Edition, he teaches writing at both University of Alaska in Anchorage and Southern New Hampshire University. A forthcoming book in 2017 follows in the footsteps of the first people of North America; there will be mammoths.
PANEL #2
Saturday • May 21 • 12:30 to 2pm • Wilkinson Public Library
Guidebook Authoring: The Ethics and a How-to of an Ever-Expiring Genre
So you've put up a bunch of rad climbs or linked up a challenging series of peak scrambles or your umpteen years of experience as a fishing guide is itching to come out in print, to be shared with the masses. How does one do this without a) messing with purists and upsetting the ethical apple cart, b) messing with landowners or wildlife, c) turning a blind eye to digital formats, and d) losing one's shirt in the process? Then there's accepting the fact that the minute a guidebook comes out, an updated edition is already on the horizon begging for a reprint. Unless it's an app that can be updated, hmmmm. Information is key when navigating terrain for either recreation, data collection, or the best pint on a seemingly deserted isle. How much is too much beta and how little is too dangerous?
THE PANELISTS
Tor Anderson
Tor is the author and designer of several popular "guide maps" for the Telluride area, and a long-time local. For many years last century, he was the Production Manager at Telluride Magazine, currently he's the owner/operator of True North Designworks. When not staring at a computer screen, he loves wandering around in the woods year-round, exploring obscure summits and old mining trails, getting powder turns and generally shirking responsibility. He also helps run the Telluride Mountain Club, a nonprofit access advocacy group whose goal is to preserve and enhance public access to human-powered, non-mechanized activities including hiking, backcountry skiing and boarding, mountaineering, climbing and other mountain-related recreation in the region. Personal responsibility, self sufficiency and environmental stewardship are core values, as well as preserving each citizen’s right to the “Freedom of the Hills.”
Ted Floyd
Ted is the editor of Birding, the flagship publication of the American Birding Association. He has published widely on birds and ecological topics, contributing to scholarly journals such as Ecology, Oecologia, Animal Behaviour, Journal of Animal Ecology, and Trends in Ecology and Evolution, and magazines such as Natural History and Birdwatcher's Digest. He has contributed chapters to textbooks and guidebooks published by Oxford University Press and National Geographic. He is the author of the Smithsonian Field Guide to the Birds of North America as well as the ABA’s Field Guide to Birds of Colorado. Ted received a B.A. in Ecology & Evolutionary Biology from Princeton University and a Ph.D. in Ecology from Penn State University. He is currently an instructor with the ABA's Institute for Field Ornithology program and has taught college-level courses in ecology, evolution, entomology, statistics, and conservation biology. He is a frequent speaker at birding festivals and has led birding trips and workshops throughout North America. With an interest in birding and ornithology as they relate to conservation and management, he participated in the creation of Bird Conservation Plans for Partners in Flight and in the production of Eco-Regional Plans for The Nature Conservancy. Currently, Ted is contributing to an effort to describe the nocturnal flight calls of migrating birds in western North America, and his findings are helping to clarify basic patterns of occurrence of birds on active migration in the West.
Daiva Chesonis (moderator)
Daiva is the co-owner and book buyer at Between the Covers Bookstore in Telluride. In her former life, she was owner/operator of Vision Design and Art Director at Telluride Magazine. She was co-designer of the now out-of-print Telluride Rocks 3rd Edition. Her hobbies—mushroom hunting, climbing, and alpine wildflower hiking—have put her nose into many a guidebook.