Author Craig Childs to Headline 8th Annual Gila River Festival
Acclaimed Writer Craig Childs to Speak at Gila River Festival on September 14
Book signing, writing workshop and fundraiser dinner with author also scheduled
Craig Childs, acclaimed author of The Secret Knowledge of Water, House of Rain, and Animal Dialogues, will keynote the 8th Annual Gila River Festival with his multi-media presentation “Watercourse: Conversations With A Moving Element” scheduled for Friday night, September 14 at 7:45 pm at the Fine Arts Center Theater on the campus of Western New Mexico University. Suggested donation for admission is $12 for adults and $5 for students. Books by the author, including his soon-to-be-released Apocalyptic Planet, will be available for sale and the author will hold a book signing following his presentation. Proceeds from book sales will benefit the Gila Conservation Coalition.
Craig Childs is a writer who focuses on natural sciences, archaeology, and remarkable journeys into the wilderness. He has published more than a dozen critically acclaimed books on nature, science, and adventure. He is a commentator for National Public Radio’s Morning Edition, and his work has appeared in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Men’s Journal, Mountain Gazette, Outside, Orion, and High Country News. His subjects range from pre-Columbian archaeology to US border issues to the last free-flowing rivers of Tibet and Patagonia.
The expeditions Childs undertake often last weeks or months, informing his writing with a hard-earned sense of landscape and culture. The New York Times says “Childs’s feats of asceticism are nothing if not awe inspiring: he’s a modern-day desert father.” He has been called a “born storyteller” by the New York Sun, and the LA Times says his writing is “like pure oxygen,” and “stings like a slap in the face.” He has won several key awards including the 2011 Ellen Meloy Desert Writers Award, 2008 Rowell Art of Adventure Award, the 2007 Sigurd Olson Nature Writing Award and the 2003 Spirit of the West Award for his body of work, an honor he shares with Wallace Stegner, Terry Tempest Williams and N. Scott Momaday. Childs is an Arizona native, and grew up back and forth between there and Colorado. With a mother hooked on outdoor adventure, and a father who liked whiskey, guns, and Thoreau, his life was rigged from the start. In his teens, Childs began working as a river guide, and since then has held numerous jobs to support his field time, from gas station attendant to journalist to beer bottler. Now making a living as a writer, Childs lives off the grid with his wife and two young sons at the foot of the West Elk Mountains in Colorado.
Childs’ presentation will be preceded by “The Singularity,” an original performance by the Western New Mexico University Expressive Arts Department at 6:30 on Friday, September 14 at the Fine Arts Center Theater. The admission price includes both Childs’ keynote and the performance.
“The Singularity” posits a time when humans may choose to discard their biological form as advances in technology make natural systems, such as the cycle of life and death, redundant. A myth, born of the Inuit, will act as a guide through a fifty-minute exploration of these questions offered by the Expressive Arts Interdisciplinary Program (iDEA). Using sound, video, and live actors, we will consider the question of “The Singularity” and its impact on the river of life.
Childs will also teach a writing workshop on Thursday, September 13 from 1 – 4pm. “Writing the World” will teach participants how to see place and practice transferring that to written words. The workshop fee is $30 and registration is required (https://www.gilaconservation.org/wp/?page_id=245).
The Gila Conservation Coalition will be auctioning a private dinner with Craig Childs at Tre Rosat on Saturday, September 15 from 5 – 6:30 pm. Bids begin at $55 and are being accepted at the Gila Conservation Coalition Facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Gila-Cons … 8196505549). The five highest bidders will be notified that they have won on Friday night, September 14.
The 8th annual Gila River Festival – planned in and around Silver City, September 13-16, 2012 – will celebrate through storytelling the natural and cultural heritage of the Gila River, New Mexico’s last free-flowing river. One of the Southwest’s premier nature festivals, the Gila River Festival attracts an audience of nature lovers and outdoor enthusiasts eager to learn about and experience the Gila’s natural wonders. Festival attendees will enjoy a variety of expert-guided field trips in the Gila National Forest and along the Gila River, a keynote talk by author Craig Childs, workshops, horseback riding, kayaking, visual and performing art exhibits and performances, a three-minute film fest, a downtown art walk and more.
The full festival schedule and registration are available at www.gilaconservation.org.
For more information, contact the Gila Conservation Coalition at 575.538.8078 or info@gilaconservation.org.
Thanks to the following sponsors who have made the 8th Annual Gila River Festival possible:
Major Sponsors:
Anonymous ~ Bear Mountain Lodge ~ Center for Biological Diversity ~ Dennis Weller Photography ~ EZ Does It Ranch ~ Gila Haven ~ Gila Native Plant Society ~ Jim and Jackie Blurton & the Silver City KOA ~ KUNM ~ McCune Charitable Foundation ~ Meyoni Geougé: Onesuch Devoted Horse Guidance ~ A We the People Project by the New Mexico Humanities Council and the National Endowment for the Humanities ~ Ode to Joy Art Collective ~ Pitchfork Ranch ~ Seedboat Center for the Arts ~ Stream Dynamics ~ Town of Silver City ~ Western New Mexico University Expressive Arts Department
Sponsors:
Audubon New Mexico ~ Bob Garrett & Mary Hotvedt ~ Carol Morrison ~ Cissy McAndrew United Country Mimbres Realty, EcoBroker™ & GREEN Realtor™ ~ Conservation Voters New Mexico Education Fund ~ Far Flung Adventures ~ In Memory of Gene Simon ~ Lisa Houston & Bob Wilson ~ Rinda Metz ~ Sandy Buffett ~ Sierra Club Southern New Mexico Group ~ Southwestern New Mexico Audubon Society ~ Vicki Allen, LISW Psychotherapist for Adults & Children ~ Western Institute for Lifelong Learning
Friends:
Alotta Gelato ~ Anonymous ~ April Crosby & Merritt Helfferich ~ Conservation By Design ~ Curious Kumquat ~ David Rose & Ceil Murray ~ First New Mexico Bank Friends of the Gila River ~ Gerry & Frank Niva ~ Great West Trail ~ High Lonesome Books ~ Jesse Franklin-Owens ~ Jim & Cheryl Leidich ~ Mimbres Region Arts Council ~ New Mexico Wilderness Alliance ~ Pauline & Richard Matthews ~ Prudential Silver City Properties ~ Regalos de la Tierra Pottery Co. ~ Richard S. Bigelow Construction ~ Robert Pittman & Kathleen Wigley ~ Ron Henry ~ San Vicente Artists ~ Silver City Food Co-op ~ Single Socks Community Thrift Store ~ Summit Technical, Inc. ~ Super Salve Company ~ Syzygy Tileworks ~ TheraSpeech ~ W. Jay Garard, D.D.S. ~ Wentz Electric, LLCV