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By Simmons Buntin, August 26, 2010 12:12 am

Terrain.org: A Journal of the Built & Natural Environments is pleased to announce the finalists and winner of our inaugural fiction contest, judged by acclaimed writer and teacher Aurelie Sheehan:

• Winner: Andrew Wingfield for “Right of Way”
  
• Finalist: Kevin Catalano for “Into the Lake”
• Finalist: Jasmon Drain for “Wet Paper Grass”

Andrew Wingfield is the winner of the Terrain.org inaugural fiction contest.

Here’s what Sheehan had to say of the winner:

“Right of Way” is filled with microbursts of surprise, the fine prose unfurling a nuanced, but powerfully directed story with tension and drama. I appreciated the underlying wit in the narrative, which leavens the increasing snarl of moral compromise.  A story dwelling in the complexities of motherhood and compassion, “Right of Way” also explores the tension between the wild of the right of way and its occupants, and the tamer, tortured civilizers.

Andrew Wingfield will receive the cash prize of $250 and publication in our forthcoming issue, No. 26, with the theme of “The Signal in the Noise.” The issue launches at www.terrain.org on September 20, 2010. The issue will also include the finalist stories by Kevin Catalano and Jasmon Drain.

Congratulations to Andrew, Kevin, and Jasmon, and many thanks to those who submitted to our first contest. We had a wonderful array of stories from which to choose.

~~~

The finalists and winner of the Terrain.org inaugural contest in poetry (judged by Jessie Lendennie) will be announced on the evening of August 26th.

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By Simmons Buntin, August 23, 2010 11:59 am

William Bartram: The Search for Nature’s Design – Selected Art, Letters, and Unpublished Writings
Edited by Thomas Hallock and Nancy E. Hoffman
The University of Georgia Press, 2010, 520 pages

Reviewed by Claudia Broman

William Bartram (1739-1823) was much more than a botanist.  He was an influential philosopher and thinker in colonial America whose unorthodox views of life’s interconnectedness filtered through his interests in nature and exploration.

Thomas Hallock, assistant professor of English at the University of South Florida, and Nancy E. Hoffman, adjunct professor at Villanova University, explore these lesser-known aspects of William Bartram in William Bartram: The Search for Nature’s Design.

The book, which presents previously unpublished material by Bartram, results in a more complete picture of the man behind many, if not most, of the botanical observations made in North America in the 1700s.

Bartram was the son of a self-taught botanist and lived on a farm in Kingsessing township in Pennsylvania.  For four years in the 1770s Bartram gathered botanical specimens on an exploratory tour of the southeastern United States.  His observations were published in the book Travels in 1791.

Correspondence included in The Search for Nature’s Design traces Bartram’s botanical adventures in chronology.  His previously unpublished papers cover botany, medicine, geography, gardening, native culture, slavery, environmental protection, commerce, aesthetics, philosophy, and religion.  Illuminated journal entries and botanical illustrations depict the natural detail of the 18th-century America Bartram observed.

William Bartram: The Search for Nature’s Design provides contextual depth for a man who continues to influence the nature writing, botanical, and horticultural movements in the United States today.

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Learn more about William Bartram by reading Lucy Rowland’s article, “America’s ‘First’ Rare Plant: The Franklin Tree” from Terrain.org Issue No. 18.

~~~

Claudia Broman lives in Ashland, Wisconsin. Her poetry has appeared in Writing Nature: An Annual of Fine Nature Writing and Drawing.

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By Simmons Buntin, August 17, 2010 4:54 pm

Recently, artist Nicole Antebi sent us a little information about a new media/book website:

Water, CA: Creative Visualizations for a New Millennium
www.watercalifornia.org

Water, CA is a series of 22 contemporary projects engaging the history, mystery, and challenge of California’s water. Presented by Antebi and artist Enid Baxter Blader, Water, CA is a multimedia experiment in geography that incorporates mythological and playful understandings of complex histories. The enticingly interactive website features essays, painting, photography, video animations, and a California water timeline.

And I think we may just be looking at the future of creative, place-based multimedia. It is accessible, informative, artistic, and — once you’re familiar with the format — easy to move through. I admit it took me a while to figure out how to get into the individual projects (hover over the location of your choice then click the artist’s name). Ideally there should be a connect between the list of water projects in the blue box and the website visitor’s ability to then get into the projects — but they only indicate where in the state those projects are located. Just remember where they’re at, hover your pointer over that location, and you can dive in, so to speak.

That aside, we at Terrain.org think this is a pretty fantastic collaborative effort, and encourage you to check it out, pronto.

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By Simmons Buntin, June 9, 2010 1:10 am

Duotrope’s Digest, the online writers’ resource listing over 2,900 current fiction and poetry publications — including Terrain.org — has just added to its ongoing series of interviews with publication editors.

The interview with Terrain.org editor-in-chief Simmons Buntin is now online at:

http://www.duotrope.com/interview.aspx?id=1142

The interview includes compelling responses to such questions as “Describe what you publish in 25 characters or less,” and “What is the best advice you can give people who are considering submitting work to your publication?”

If you’re interested in submitting to Terrain.org, or just want to read a bit of the strange workings from Terrain.org’s founding editor (not to mention fiction editor Patrick Burns), check out the interview now.

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By Simmons Buntin, May 8, 2010 5:50 pm

This must be one of the original video essays. Pretty good stuff.

Abbey on NBC from Eric Temple on Vimeo.

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By Joshua Foster, February 9, 2010 4:51 pm

Joshua Foster in snowy Idaho.

Terrain.org Nonfiction Editor Joshua Foster on Writing the Personal Essay

A professor from my alma mater recently invited me back to campus to discuss with his freshmen composition class the writing of personal essays. A few weeks prior, it came to my attention that the college had used an essay I’d written while there, a short two-pager called “Second Day of Sun,” as a student example in their comp textbook. A flattering and overwhelming predicament, realizing that all incoming freshmen would be reading (or, better said, assigned to read) my work.

The problem came in teaching the writing principles of personal essaying. I’d written “Second Day of Sun” inspired by a gut urge while walking to campus one melty winter day, punching out the text while at work in the basement of the Engineering building. The whole process, start to finish, took maybe two hours. I handed it in a few days later, and then sent it off to Idaho Magazine a week after that. Idaho Magazine accepted it [read essay], and the essay became my first official publication. If anything, the composition seemed like a lucky accident.

The answer came in a metaphor. Idaho in January is a frigid place—the farm fields buried in snow, the naked trees spindled and bare. On a clear morning, one can see for miles across the glistening expanse. And so I asked the students to imagine being alone, outside, on those barren fields. Perhaps they have on snowshoes, or cross-country skis. Perhaps they are barefoot. Darkness falls. Out across the plain a light can be seen. They fumble in that direction, trudging and plodding toward the beacon. Finally, they arrive. There sits a house with no front door, and a fire can be seen inside, roaring and lapping in the stone hearth. What would one do in such a situation? Easy: go in through the open door and get near the heat.

Perhaps personal writing is not that different. Any writer will attest that the blank page is looming and lonely, a tundra to track through and traverse. And that is what happens until a light is found. And then the writer needs only to do two things—at least in their initial efforts of composition—to pen the personal essay. Burst through that open door and face the flames.

Though I didn’t understand those principles while writing “Second Day of Sun,” I do now. Spare the reader the meandering quest of arriving at a subject. Instead, guide them through the opening and convey to them the emotional core, the heat of the piece, and keep them there until the only solution is to step away or combust.

~~~

Joshua Foster lives and works on his family’s potato and grain farm in southeastern Idaho. He recently earned an MFA degree in fiction and nonfiction writing from the University of Arizona. He serves as the nonfiction editor for Terrain.org: A Journal for the Built & Natural Environments.