Zoom readings in the time of Covid

The bad news, of course, is that we can't sit together and listen to stories and then go out for dinner. The good news is that every reading and talk gets instantly preserved online. Here's what I've been up to.

I taught my first Zoom writing workshop for Kanab, Utah's Amazing Earthfest, in collaboration with Grand Staircase Escalante Partners. You can revisit the session to tune up your writing chops.

I've presented my reading from The Capitol Reef Reader and my talk about Grand Canyon photography, based on my book Lasting Light, for the University of Utah's Go Learn travel program. I read an excerpt about the attacks on piñon-juniper woodland by the Trump administration for the Ecological Society of America/Natural History Institute (I turn up at 52 minutes into the video). You can find the piece in full at Terrain.org. 

The Capitol Reef Reader turns up in my contributions to two other conversations. Fred Swanson (author of Wonders of Sand and Stone) and I talk about the history of Utah's national parks for Weller Book Works. And the Utah Historical Society annual conference booked me with Jeff Nichols and Melanie Armstrong, the eloquent editors of two other books in the University of Utah national park reader series, to spin stories from Capitol Reef, Arches, and Canyonlands. We had a delightful exchange.

Next came a fascinating look at Solomon Carvalho, who took the first photograph of Capitol Reef in 1854. During Vallejo, California's "Visions of the Wild" celebration of living on the 38th parallel—worldwide—I joined a Carvalho filmmaker and a daguerreotypist who recreated Carvalho's images.

If your book group is reading one of my books or if you are planning an event that connects with my interests and expertise, please contact me. I'm happy to join in—and we all need social interaction in these isolating times.

We all spend far too much time looking at our faces on Zoom. Luckily, in these presentations, I quickly shift to my photographs!