July 24-30, 2011
Kathleen Dean Moore, Visiting Writer
Maria Shell, quilt artist
Nancy Cook, workshop director

2011 theme
Wild Comfort

Essayist and philosopher Kathleen Dean Moore invites writers of all accomplishment and aspiration to join her for a week of writing adventures in the Wrangells:

“Gather in the Alaskan village of McCarthy, where new poplars grow green as spring in the blue shadows of glaciers.  You will find wild fireweed and moose tracks in the silt between smooth stones at your feet, and when you lift your eyes, shattered mountaintops and torrents of ice. Witness: The Earth holds every possibility inside it, and the mystery of transformation – ice to fireweed, winter to spring, death to life, and more often than you might think, grief to gladness.  This is the wildest comfort. This is the inspiration for our work.”

In this intimate workshop (16 participants max), Kathleen will guide writers to explore the sources and structures of creative nonfiction essays. “How can we write words worthy of the mountains that surround us?  How can we move seamlessly between the Alaska taiga landscape and the landscape of human ideas, memory, and emotion? How can we open ourselves to new sources of ideas and inspiration? What is the healing work of a writer in a wounded world?  How is writing itself a healing practice? In this place of transformations, how can we transform our visions into words on the page and songs in the heart?”

This year’s workshop is also honored to welcome Anchorage-based quilt artist Maria Shell in a teaching role, and throughout the week we will be invited to turn to quilt art for metaphor and inspiration. Early on, writers will have the chance to craft personalized fabric blocks which Maria will piece into a community quilt. Later, interested writers will have the opportunity to complete a personal journal quilt, creating images and text to tell a story, express a mood, or illustrate a piece of written work. Moreover, we will explore how the essay itself is often a form of patchwork, with each writer intuitively following patterns of language, piecing the fabric of memory, inquiry and observation into a larger design. Together, we will recognize how the essayist and the quilt artist share a common goal: sometimes following and sometimes expanding their given traditions to craft a work of art uniquely beautiful and real. Whether the product is an essay of well-crafted words, a colorful wall hanging, or the scraps of this world sewn into a quilt and wrapped warmly around a neighbor’s shoulder, we seek and can deliver comfort through our shared creative work. 

During this weeklong adventure writers can expect:

In the time we are together, we will follow the advice of the poet Mary Oliver, who wrote in “Praying”

It doesn't have to be
the blue iris, it could be
weeds in a vacant lot, or a few
small stones; just
pay attention, then patch

a few words together and don't try
to make them elaborate, this isn't
a contest but the doorway

into thanks, and a silence in which
another voice may speak.

 

About the Workshop

Workshop Staff
Kathleen Dean Moore, Guest Faculty, is a philosopher, nature writer, public speaker, and advocate for the beautiful, beleaguered planet.  Her work brings together the personal essay, natural history, and moral philosophy to explore our place on the planet and our responsibilities for its thriving.

Moore is best known as a nature writer, whose essays question and celebrate our cultural and spiritual connections to the wild, nurturing Earth.  Her 2010 book of essays, Wild Comfort: The Solace of Nature, tells of nature's power to move us from sorrow to courage and hope. Riverwalking: Reflections on Moving Water, is set on Oregon's wild rivers. The rocky intertidal edge of the sea is the setting for the essays in Holdfast: At Home in the Natural World. The Pine Island Paradox, which begins under the cold salt sun of southeast Alaska, makes the case for an ethic of care based on the kinship of all being.

Moore's nature books have won the Oregon Book Award, the Pacific Northwest Booksellers' Award, and the Sigurd Olson Nature Writing Award. Her work is published in magazines such as Orion, Audubon, Discover, The Sun, and the New York Times Magazine. She serves on the Boards of Directors for the Orion Society, the Oregon Humanities Magazine, and the Island Institute in Sitka, Alaska.  She teaches writing workshops in beautiful places, from wilderness Alaska to the Apostle Islands.

Her newest book is MORAL GROUND: Ethical Action for a Planet in Peril. It gathers testimony  from a hundred of the world's moral leaders, who call us to honor our obligations to future generations. Moore and co-editor Michael P. Nelson speak widely to audiences of interested citizens, scientists, church groups, etc. about the need for a moral response to climate destabilization and species loss.

Moore is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at Oregon State University in Corvallis, where she teaches environmental ethics, philosophy of nature, and a variety of courses for OSU's new MA in Environmental Leadership, including "Practical Moral Reasoning for Environmental Professionals."  She is the author of two critical thinking textbooks and a study of the ethics of forgiveness, Pardons: Justice, Mercy, and the Public Interest (Oxford UP), selected by Choice as an "Outstanding Academic Book" of the year. She publishes about environmental ethics and moral reasoning in academic journals such as Conservation Biology and the Journal of Forestry and in books about the management of forest and ocean resources. She is co-editor of three collections: Rachel Carson: Legacy and Challenge, In the Blast Zone: Catastrophe and Renewal on Mount St. Helens, and How It Is: The Native American Philosophy of V.F. Cordova.

At OSU, Moore is co-author of the new Environmental Humanities Initiative, which integrates science and humanities to provide leadership for complex times.  She is also the founding director of the Spring Creek Project for Ideas, Nature, and the Written Word. Its mission is to bring together the practical wisdom of the environmental sciences, the analytic clarity of philosophy, and the emotional power of the written word to re-imagine our relation to the natural world.

Moore lives in Corvallis, Oregon, with her husband, Frank Moore, a biologist. They have two grown children -- an ecologist and an architect. Moore writes in the WaterShed, a tiny writers' studio that her daughter designed to gather water from the roof and pour it past the door into a trough where deer come to drink. In the summers, she writes in her family's cabin on the edge of a cove in Southeast Alaska.

 

 

Nancy Cook, Workshop Director, has led field programs for the Wrangell Mountains Center since 1991. A former National Park Service interpretive ranger, she received her MFA in Creative Nonfiction from the University of Alaska Fairbanks and her BS in Environmental Science from the Evergreen State College. Her poems and prose appear in the Riverteeth Journal of Nonfiction Narrative, Anchorage Daily News, Mountain Gazette, and Going Alone (Seal Press 2004). She has taught writing at Prince William Sound Community College and University of Alaska Fairbanks, and is currently a full time faculty member at Clatsop Community College in Astoria, Oregon. The mother of one daughter, she continues to spend summers at her cabin near McCarthy. 

 

Quiltmaker Maria Shell earned an MFA in Creative Nonfiction before becoming a full time visual artist. Her art quilts and threadwork have earned national and international recognition. Her work has been featured in several prestigious gallery and museum shows. Recent awards include a viewer’s choice award at the 2010 Form, Not Function Quilt Art at the Carnegie and Best of show at the 2010 All Alaska Juried Art Exhibition XXXIII at the Anchorage Museum at the Rasmuson Center. Maria is one of 35 artists selected to represent Studio Art Quilts Associates 20th anniversary show SAQA@ 20: Art and Excellence. She was awarded a Rasmuson Emerging Artist fellowship in 2009. Her work can be seen in 500 Art Quilts, Journey of Hope: Quilts Inspired by President Barack Obama, and the recent Quilt Art 2011 Engagement Calendar. More


Location and Venue
The Wrangell Mountains Writing Workshop is a Wrangell Mountains Center (WMC) program. The WMC is a private nonprofit institute which fosters understanding, appreciation, and stewardship of wildlands and mountain culture in Alaska through scientific and artistic inquiry in the Wrangell Mountains. The workshop is based at the WMC's headquarters in the Old Hardware Store in McCarthy, Alaska. The town of McCarthy is set in the heart of Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve, the largest national park in the U.S. Over 23% larger than Switzerland, Wrangell-St. Elias is world renowned for its wild landscapes, high peaks, massive glaciers and rivers, healthy ecosystems, and dramatic scenery as well as its unique cultural history.

McCarthy is approximately a seven hour drive from either Anchorage or Fairbanks (plus time for sightseeing, et cetera). Out-of-state participants normally fly into Anchorage; we make no promises, but do our best (usually with great success) to connect participants into carpools. It's also possible to fly or arrange shuttles from Anchorage to McCarthy.

McCarthy and neighboring Kennecott, a national historic landmark, are situated within the Kennicott Valley (note the different spellings between the natural features and historical features.) McCarthy and Kennecott serve locals and travelers alike as a gateway to world-class backcountry opportunities and amazing frontcountry hikes and walks (including access to the Root Glacier), while also providing a window into some of the most unique chapters in Alaska's history and an authentic, lively contemporary community which calls the Wrangells home. Hardware Store

While the workshop invites writers into the field on guided excursion, much of the week takes place within the Old Hardware Store. Built in 1908 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the Hardware Store serves as a cozy, atmospheric place to write and share, and is located just a half mile from the toe of the Kennicott Glacier.


Schedule
Participants should plan to arrive in McCarthy in time to get settled in (at the lodge, at the campground, etc) in time for a 6:00 pm kickoff dinner on July 24th. The workshop ends with breakfast on July 30th. Optional morning writing circles will be offered daily before breakfast and all meals will be taken together. Detailed schedules will be provided with a welcome packet upon registration.


Meals & Accommodations food
 Tasty homemade meals (mostly vegetarian) are included in the price of the workshop. In keeping with the WMC's commitment to cooperative living and sustainable systems, writers are invited to contribute to daily chores connected with our organic garden and clean-up of meals.

Primitive camping is available for free to participants at a private site just a short walk from the WMC. Those who opt for camping are welcome to store gear at the WMC and use our rustic shower and facilities. Wrangell Mountains Center staff will direct you to the campsite and orient you there upon your arrival.

Alternatively, participants may choose to rent a bed at the historic Commissioner's Cabin in downtown McCarthy just one block away from the Hardware Store for an additional $15 per night. Please contact us early to ensure availability. Other lodging options within McCarthy include the full service McCarthy Lodge and Lancaster's Backpacker Hotel, located just down the street. The Kennicott River Lodge and Hostel is another great option outside of town; it's a short bicycle ride or twenty minute walk each way. If you bring a vehicle with you, Currant Ridge Cabins is located just over three miles out the road from the parking lot at the end of the road; it's about a half mile walk between the parking area and the Old Hardware Store. Free shuttles run between the river and McCarthy on a rotation with limited hours. If you bring a camper in or would otherwise like to camp out with your vehicle, there are two commercial campgrounds near the end of the McCarthy Road that will accommodate you without advance reservations.


Register for the Writing Workshop

To register, please mail in this completed form with your deposit. Directions are included in the form. If you have questions about registration or would prefer to pay online, email jeremy@wrangells.org.

Register soon! The workshop will be limited to 16 participants and a $30 discount is offered to participants who register before May 1st; WMC members receive a 10% discount.

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see the Poetry Workshop page

writers on ice
Several participants in the 2009 Wrangell Mountains Writing Workshop and Wrangell Mountains Center staff explore the Root Glacier while other participants explore the nearby Kennecott National Historic Landmark or work on their writing projects.

~

SRS

photo by Jon Campbell

2009 Visiting Writer Scott Russell Sanders reads a passage from his book A Conservationist Manifesto during the annual Word Jam, an open-to-the-public literary and performance art open mic held in conjunction with the Wrangell Mountains Writing Workshop.