I had the pleasure to participate in two conferences this summer: the weeklong writers' conference Bread Loaf Orion at the Bread Loaf Mountain Campus of Middlebury College in Vermont, and the biennial conference of ASLE, the Association for the Study of Literature and Environment, in Detroit.
At the Bread Loaf Orion Environmental Writers' Conference, I participated in Joe Wilkins's nonfiction writing workshop, and my submission was an excerpt from my Havening manuscript, which I had set aside for several years and was returning to afresh. I'm deeply grateful for the input I received from my workshopmates, and my reflections on that experience can be read on my blog, here.
At the ASLE Conference in Detroit, I presented a paper titled "Ecospherism on the Land: Fieldwork, Ignorance, and Ecological Creativity" for a panel titled "Ecosphere Studies: Recovering our Membership in 'Earth Alive!'" alongside Julianne Lutz Warren, Aubrey Streit Krug, John Hausdoerffer, and Leah Bayens. This was also a wonderful experience, and my reflections on it and on my other travels in June around the Midwest can be read on my blog, here.