187 Main Street

Welcome, Anushka

June 30, 2008

The Orion Grassroots Network welcomed its newest intern staffer, Anushka Peres, this month (pictured above with Jon Denn, director of nearby Network member groups Trinity Conference Center and Counting Prayers).

Anushka comes to us with experience gained from stints with a variety of grassroots environmental groups, has a recent degree from Marlboro College in Vermont, and even ‘got on the bus’ with Network member group Audubon Expedition Institute in the southwest and Alaska. So she obviously fits in very well already, not least of which because she’s also an accomplished photographer.

Ginger Strand Reports from the Field

June 27, 2008

Orion contributing editor Ginger Strand sent this note from Duke University, where she finds the weather to be unbearably hot and where she’s researching a new book:

“Anyway, yesterday in an attempt to find some humane aspect to this godforsaken place I went to the local farmer’s market, where the chocolate
seller (best candy bar I ever ate, actually) was reading the new Orion.  And then today, I did a pre-interview with the NPR show Living on Earth, and the
producer said she was a fan of Orion!  So there you go, Orion has the artisan gourmands and the ecology public radio show audience wrapped up.
But you knew that, already, didn’t you?”

Orion Editors Afield

June 25, 2008

Orion editors have been out and about this spring, speaking at a number of conferences and events:

• In March, Executive Director Chip Blake gave a talk at the Southern Environmental Law Center on the relationship between literature and activism, as part of the Virginia Festival of the Book.

• In April, Executive Editor Hal Clifford took part in a panel at the annual conference of the American Society of Journalists and Authors in New York City

• In April, Editor Jennifer Sahn served on a roundtable discussion at the Juniper Literary Festival in Amherst, Massachusetts

• Jennifer was a featured speaker at the Environmental Writers’ Conference in Honor of Rachel Carson in Boothbay Harbor, Maine in June

• In early June Hal gave a talk on sustainability to 170 employees of the Olympus Surgical & Industrial America in New Jersey (see fuller description in an earlier post)

• Chip was the keynote speaker at the Environmental Leadership Program’s Celebration of Leadership in June.

• and today Picture Editor Jason Houston is in New York, speaking at a gathering of recent graduates of the International Center for Photography.

In upcoming staff travels, Jennifer will be a presenter at the Kentucky Womens Writers Conference in September; In October, Managing Editor Tara Miner will attend the annual conference of the Society of Environmental Journalists in Roanoke, Virginia; Jason will be a panelist at the Art + Environment Conference at the Nevada Museum of Art in October; and Chip will be the keynote speaker at Confluence: A Celebration of Reading and Writing in Moab, Utah, in October.

Wildbranch 2008 a Success!

June 19, 2008

Editor Jen Sahn writes:

It was another fabulous year at Wildbranch, the writing workshop cosponsored by Orion and Sterling College. Faculty members David Abram, Janisse Ray, Scott Russell Sanders, and Sandra Steingraber drew an appealing group of applicants, half of whom were accepted to attend the workshop in June. The weather in Craftsbury Common, Vermont, was brisk this year, but it didn’t put much of a damper on the morning bird walks. It was a busy week, as usual, with morning class, afternoon discussions, wine and beer social hours, locally sourced meals, and, of course, homework. Some excellent writing was shared by faculty at a Wednesday evening reading, and by students on Friday afternoon. It is a delight for the editors of Orion to play a role in making this workshop happen. We look forward to it every year.

Details for the 2009 workshop will be announced in autumn.

Hal speaks at Olympus

June 06, 2008

Last month Chip took a call from Olympus Surgical and Industrial America, Inc. The caller had found Orion and wanted someone from the staff to talk to all of that corporation’s employees on June 6, World Environment Day. I donned my blue blazer and headed south with a PowerPoint presentation. I spoke at Olympus SIA’s headquarters in Orangeburg, NY to about 170 people in two presentations. The talk was a challenge, and I said as much: I was speaking to a very different audience than I am accustomed to, one that wasn’t versed in the environmental, social and cultural language we take for granted in the Orion universe. For example, only four of these people admitted to having seen An Inconvenient Truth. In addition to describing Orion and The Orion Society, and showing about 60 images from recent issues of Orion, I spoke about how we’re trying to walk our talk; the overwhelming challenges of climate change; and how to embrace those challenges in meaningful and rewarding ways. With luck, some of it stuck! Everyone at Olympus got a sample copy of the magazine, and Orion has extended a discounted subscription to all the staff there. 

Orion hosts author Ginger Strand

June 06, 2008

Ginger Strand, Orion’s newest contributing editor, stopped by our offices recently while on book tour. Her first book of nonfiction, Inventing Niagara: Beauty, Power, and Lies, was published in May by Simon and Schuster and has been well-reviewed by Newsweek, the New York Times Sunday Book Review, The Wall Street Journal (reviewed there by Orion’s own Bill Kauffman), and The Washington Post, among others. Ginger joined the staff for lunch and a discussion about how the book came to be (her first story for Orion, Faux Falls, in the November-December 2006 issue, formed the basis for a chapter), and what it’s like trying to keep a much-distracted publisher’s attention. She joined Orion staff and Orion contributors Jon Piasecki and Daniel Bellow for drinks after work, and was game to venture out into the Berkshire Hill towns for dinner, too. Ginger has become a prolific contributor to the magazine, publishing several features in recent issues, plus short pieces for Reviews and Sacred & Mundane. Look for more work from her in our pages soon.

Jason Joins Blue Earth Alliance Advisory Board

June 03, 2008

Orion’s picture editor, Jason Houston, recently accepted a position on the advisory board of the Blue Earth Alliance. Blue Earth works to raise awareness about endangered cultures, threatened environments, and social concerns through photography by supporting photographers on these long-term projects with a wide range of resources. Many of the most compelling picture essays in Orion have been by Blue Earth sponsored photographers, including Robert Semeniuk, John Trotter, Rebecca Norris Webb, David Maisel, and, most recently, the photographer/writer team Benjamin Drummond and Sara Steele. This exciting collaboration will help to strengthen Orion’s position as a great outlet for publishing long-term, in-depth and personal projects on how we live on the planet.

Orion Bird Walks

May 05, 2008

Beginning in about 1998, Orion’s staff has gone on bird walks on Friday mornings in April and May. We meet on a marshy piece of property in Great Barrington that is owned by the Myrin Institute and march around for an hour or so before heading for work. Over the years dozens of staff members, friends, and Great Barrington residents have participated in these walks, and we’ve seen some pretty good birds in the process, including merlin, golden-winged warbler, Brewster’s warbler, and Lincoln’s sparrow.

The 2008 season is off to a slow start—not a lot of birds around yet—but it’s been cool and migration seems to be running a little late. We’re counting on it to heat up a bit.

Left to right: Great Barrington resident Elaine Radiss, OGN intern Silas Branson, and Orion development officer Chris Nye on an Orion bird walk, May 1, 2008.

Three Pushcarts for Orion

May 05, 2008

Three pieces that appeared in Orion in the past year have won 2007 Pushcart Prizes:

Keith Althaus’s poem ”Rain”
Bill DeBuys, “Errands in the Forest”
Anthony Doerr, ”Window of Possibility”

All three will appear in the forthcoming 2009 anthology, “The Pushcart Prize: Best of the Small Presses.” These anthologies, which strive to recognize the outstanding writing published by small presses, literary journals, and magazines, have been published annually since 1976. Read more about Pushcart here.

Orion Intern Is a Poetry Finalist

May 01, 2008

Amelie Dyzmann, a senior at Miss Hall’s School in nearby Pittsfield, Mass., has been interning at Orion one morning a week since September. She helps with the Reviews department, aided in the organization in the Orion Book Award, and has taken on the project of designing notecards that feature poetry Orion has published. In this vein, Amelie memorized a Mary Oliver poem, “Lead,” for a school-wide recitation contest. Her performance was judged best among all the seniors, placing her in the top four among approximately 200 students. Not bad for someone who speaks English as a second language! Amelie is headed back to her native Germany this month, where she plans to pursue an internship at a theater company in Hamburg. We’ll miss her.