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Bonus Dispatch: The Elk River Writers Workshop Needs You
Support a native-led workshop by backing their books!
Jared Nelson
April 15, 2025
Happy April, everyone! A regularly scheduled newsletter update will be forthcoming soon, but I wanted to post a quick note highlighting the launch of The Elk River Writers Workshop’s Kickstarter to produce four amazing books of nature writing and poetry that will help raise funds for their equally amazing, native-led organization.
Let’s face it: Funding for the arts is in crisis in the US
In today’s political climate, federal and state support for arts and humanities programs could not be in a more dire position. The shockwave of recent decisions to eliminate federal grants for arts and humanities programs will be a deathblow to many organizations already struggling with rising costs to provide essential, and in many cases, unique programs across the country.
The Elk River Writers Workshop: there’s nothing quite like it.
Nature writers and poets listening to a lecture at the Elk River Writers Workshop
Writers learning, working, and growing together in the beautiful Montana countryside
Writing retreats can be powerfully transformative experiences. For writers and poets who center their work on nature and conservation, leaving the concrete and smog of the city to reconnect with the land can be especially revitalizing. Throw in a week of intensive craft discussions and fellowship with like-minded creators in the rugged Montana countryside and you have the makings of a once in a lifetime experience.
Poet, columnist, author and Elk River Director CMarie Fuhrman speaking to attendees
At the heart of the Elk River Writers retreat is their mission to “inspire students and our community to grapple with challenging questions about themselves and our environment, while fostering the inquiry, equity, and agency necessary for them to practice ethical citizenship at home and far beyond Elk River.”
We need spaces like this as much as these spaces need us
In the ongoing roiling chaos of the age we find ourselves in, of increasingly volatile climate change and deep sociopolitical unrest, programs like The Elk River Writers Workshop meet the moment, inspiring writers to create the art we need in these restless times.
The Kickstarter campaign runs until May 8th. Please consider backing it at any level you can afford to keep this wonderful workshop available for the next generation of great nature writers and poets.