The Spring Creek Project for Ideas, Nature, and the Written Word at Oregon State University recently announced its Mount Saint Helens Field Residencies program for writers. The May 1 deadline is fast approaching for poets and prose writers whose work explores place and the natural world, and who are interested in writing "creative responses to the volcano and its varied landscapes."
Residents receive a stipend of one thousand dollars, a campsite at a meadow base camp—though writers must bring their own camping gear—located near Randle, Washington and the volcano; meals; and transportation around the residency site. The program, held from July 18 to 24, will take place at the same time as Mount Saint Helens Science Pulse, a conference of ecologists and field researchers who, in addition to doing their own fieldwork, will travel with writers on field trips and make time for more informal interactions.
The residency program is a companion to the Spring Creek Project's Long-Term Ecological Reflections program, which is rooted in tenets including, "That storytelling and poetry, observation and experiment, myth and mathematics are all authentic windows on the world."
Applications and more information about the residencies are available on the Spring Creek Project Web site.