Join the Washington State Historical Society as we celebrate unique, iconic Cascadia—from Madrona to Tufted Puffin, Sword Fern to Hera Buckmoth, Salmon to Mountain Beaver—with editors and poets of the best-selling new book, Cascadia Field Guide: Art, Ecology, Poetry. Cascadia stretches from Southeast Alaska to Northern California and from the Pacific Ocean to the Continental Divide. The book blends image, science, and story to celebrate this region through natural and cultural histories, poetry, and original art to invite people to connect, wonder, and learn. Including well-established and new writers and artists, the book represents a diverse spectrum of voices. Cascadia Field Guide co-editors Elizabeth Bradfield and Derek Sheffield will be joined by contributors Ever Jones, Keven Miller, and Anastasia-Reneé. The event is $14 for non-WSHS members and registration is required.
Elizabeth Bradfield grew up in Tacoma and was formed by her years on the Salish Sea and in Southeast Alaska. She is the author of the poetry collections Once Removed, Approaching Ice, Interpretive Work, Toward Antarctica, and Theorem, and creditor of Broadsided Press: Fifteen Years of Poetic and Artistic Collaboration, 2005–2020. Her poems have been published in the New Yorker, Atlantic Monthly, The Sun, and her essays have appeared in National Parks Conservation Magazine and several anthologies. Bradfield’s honors include the Audre Lorde Prize and a Stegner fellowship. She works as a naturalist, runs Broadsided Press, and teaches creative writing at Brandeis University. www.ebradfield.com
Derek Sheffield was born in the Willamette Valley of Oregon and grew up there and on the shores of the Salish Sea. Since 2003, he has worked as a professor of English at Wenatchee Valley College, where, in partnership with biologist Dr. Dan Stephens, he teaches Northwest Nature Writing. Thanks to support from the Spring Creek Project, he has had field residencies at Loowit-Mount St. Helens and the H. J. Andrews Experimental Forest. His experience of Cascadia is also significantly defined by his identity as hiker, birder, fisher, forest bather, and father. Author of the poetry collections Through the Second Skin, finalist for the Washington State Book Award, and Not for Luck, and coeditor of Dear America: Letters of Hope, Habitat, Defiance, and Democracy, he serves as poetry editor of Terrain.org.
Ever Jones has wandered between the construction cranes in Seattle and the Fryingpan Glacier on Mount Tahoma for a decade. They are the author of nightsong and Wilderness Lessons, poetry collections reckoning with queer/trans embodiment, environmental degradation, racism, inheritance, grief, and hope. Jones is a professor at the University of Washington Tacoma and spent quarantine with three adults, one toddler, one cat, and a new puppy.
Kevin Miller lives across the street from Point Defiance Park, the second-largest city park in the United States. Miller’s fourth poetry collection, Vanish, received the Wandering Aengus Publication Award in 2019. He is most recently the author of a chapbook of baseball poems, Spring Meditation. Miller taught in the public schools of Washington State for thirty-nine years.
Anastacia-Reneé (she/they) is a writer, educator, interdisciplinary artist, TEDx speaker, and podcaster. She is the author of (v.), Forget It, and Side Notes from the Archivist. Recently she was selected by NBC News as part of the list of “Queer Artists of Color Dominate 2021’s Must-See LGBTQ Art Shows.” Anastacia-Reneé was former Seattle civic poet (2017–2019), Hugo House poet in residence (2015–2017), and Arc Artist fellow (2020).
