David James Duncan's Blog

Whitefish Review Hosts Author David James Duncan for Release of “The Wild Issue” on June 2, 2012

Duncan is joined by author Brooke Williams, poets Lois Neal Brown, Max Hjortsberg, Ron McFarland, and Meliss Clark, plus 13-year-old first time author, Sarah Ward

Author David James Duncan will headline a reading for the launch of Whitefish Review issue #11–”The Wild Issue”–on June 2, 2012 at The Lodge at Whitefish Lake, outside under the waterfront tent pavilion. Live music, a silent auction, appetizers and drinks will complement the readings. There is a $10 suggested entry donation, but all are welcome. More info at Whitefish Review : Mountain Culture Literary Journal : Whitefish, Montana

David is giving two presentations this July in the Parsons Memorial Lodge Summer 2012 Series in Tuolumne Meadows, Yosemite National Park.

Saturday, July 28

The Wild Without and the Wild Within: The Border between Wild Lands and the Contemplative Life

2:00 p.m. – 3:30 p.m.

Talk and discussion with David James Duncan

Sunday, July 29

Birds We Gauge Our Lives By

2:00 p.m. – 3:30 p.m.

Readings by poet Tom Crawford and David James Duncan

Get the full pdf schedule here and see the complete Yosemite Summer Series site here.

David is the keynote at Fishtrap 2012. Grab the pdf postcard here.

From Fishtrap.org: "This year, our theme is Catch and Release: what we hold on to, what we let go and the one that got away. Fishing is core to the past, present and future of this area, and we will talk explicitly about the politics and future of fishing and the West. Our keynote speaker, David James Duncan, author of The River Why, will address the metaphoric significance of catch and release in writing and in life; our workshops will help you cultivate your own practice; and our panelists will discuss what we want to hold on to and what we might let go both as artists and as residents of the West in a time of transition. On Saturday night we will celebrate 25 years of writing and the West, with a gala "Fishtrap Live" hosted by Hal Cannon and Teresa Jordan."

Two new music tracks to listen to on the Music page (use the link above): "Gretel," a poem from Lauds by Tom Crawford (published by Cedar House Books), performed by David James Duncan; and I Gave My Love A Story, a sketch of a soundtrack for a screenplay of David's novella "The Garbage Man's Daughter."

Welcome to davidjamesduncan.com, the new home on the web of David James Duncan. We'll be posting news approx. monthly on new work and activism, excerpts from upcoming work and links to articles available on the web. At the menus above, check out some music tracks and info on films and books.

You can follow davidjamesd on Twitter, use the links in the right sidebar to Tweet and Share on Facebook, subscribe to the RSS feed and send email about the site to people you know.

Here's a ten minute interview that originally broadcast on KUFM Montana Public Radio on April, 19th, 2011. David talks with KUFM news director Sally Mauk about salmon, the Columbia River dams and the Kearl Modules hauling through Idaho and Montana.

KUFM-Montana Public Radio Interview

Used with permission of KUFM and MTPR.org

There's an article in Outside Magazine this month by David James Duncan which is an adaptation from The Heart of the Monster. Read the full piece at The High and Wide Industrial Corridor | OutsideOnline.com, and here's an excerpt:

The single largest petroleum project in the world, the Alberta Tar Sands, sits some 700 miles north of my home in Western Montana, and until recently seemed a foreign and abstract threat. I'm a very busy man, happily employed on a novel-writing project. The crises of the world fade into white noise once I've given myself to my work. Sure, I'd heard that the Tar Sands are the single largest energy-consuming project in the world. Sure, Tar Sands carbon-dioxide emissions could quadruple in the next ten years, and have been likened by leading climatologists to an act of war by Canada against itself and every other nation in the world. Sure, forty million acres of pine forests in the North American West have died and turned to tinder thanks to those same CO2 emissions, and yours and mine. But my church consists of trout streams, and trout rise to a fly even among dead trees, so I could still conduct my kind of worship. As I say, I was a busy man.

Then, two years ago, ExxonMobil decided to convert 1,100 miles of beautiful American rivers and roads—including my home rivers and road—into a so-called "High and Wide industrial corridor" connecting the industrialized nations of the Pacific Rim to the Tar Sands.

View a collection of photographs by Frederic Ohringer of the proposed corridor -Montana and Idaho Scenic Byways | OutsideOnline.com – and go to his website to see more of his work.

David and Rick

The Heart of the Monster has been published. Co-written by David James Duncan and Rick Bass, it is a half fiction/half non-fiction advocacy book whose proceeds go to All Against The Haul. Bass and Duncan have joined All Against the Haul in protesting the construction of a permanent industrial corridor along rural roads in the Northwest and Northern Rockies that will allow oil companies access to the Alberta Tar Sands.

a review at amazon.com: Yesterday my copy of the new book by Rick Bass and David James Duncan arrived. Simply put = = it is beautifully done. It has many excellent color and black and white photos which give wonderful visual perspectives. The authors dropped everything in their personal lives to achieve this important product in record time. These guys can really, REALLY write! If you are working on this critically important issue you have to have the book as a reference source for advocacy. If you are new to the issue and will please help this book will launch you forward like a rocket. My firm personal belief is that this is hands-down the most important social/ economic/ environmental issue on the table in the Pacific Northwest. It is also of course now a National and international issue. I am diving into the book today. –Scott Phillips

Gus and Cosmo - Photo: Bret Simmons

Read the coverage at December 22, 2010: Those of Heart and Will: The Story Behind the New Rick Bass and David James Duncan Collaboration « NorthWest Book Lovers and buy the book at Powell's Books – Portland or Elliott Bay Book Co. – Seattle or Village Books – Bellingham or amazon.com.

Ahhhhhhh.... - Photo: Bret Simmons

David writes: My dog Gus, as I set down these words, is sitting on a stump just outside our horses' fenced paddock, literally grinning while our big Andalusian geldings, Cosmo and Tino, lean down over the fence and groom him with their tongues. They do this most every day. Some days twice. When the grooming is over, it is Gus's turn to lightly nibble the swivel their huge heads this way and that, then hold steady, not quite audibly sighing, Ahhhhhhhhhhh….

Slurp.... - Photo: Bret Simmons

"These acts of empathy and compassion extend interspecies," writes Jane Hirshfield "and underlie our faith in the possibility of a life not ruled by chaos, force, and fear." "At the bottom of the heart of every human being, from earliest infancy to the tomb," adds Simone Weil, "something goes on indomitably expecting—despite every crime committed, suffered, or witnessed—that good, and not evil, will be done to us. It is this expectation, above all, that is sacred in every human being."

New video interview on the Columbia-Snake River system and the fish that depend on the removal of the four Lower Snake River Dams for survival.

David James Duncan has a statement on the recent The River Why movie production the the legal case behind it. Read more at the site: http://davidjamesduncan.com