BEND, Ore. (KTVZ) — Heather Quinn, a Minnesota-based author, photographer and filmmaker, has been formally chosen because the winner of the eleventh annual Waterston Desert Writing Prize by visitor choose and writer Beth Piatote, Ph.D.
The Waterston Desert Writing Prize, established in 2014 by writer and Oregon Poet Laureate Ellen Waterston, honors and fosters literary nonfiction that celebrates desert landscapes.
Quinn’s successful submission is titled This Is How You Disappear, a challenge in regards to the California desert. Quinn, who receives a $3,000 money prize, will give a studying and focus on their challenge on the Waterston Desert Writing Prize ceremony on Thursday, September 25, 2025.
The occasion options award-winning writer Dan Flores, Ph.D., who will give a chat titled, “The Coyote Is the Dude, the Dude Abides, and the Adventures Proceed,” in the course of the ceremony.
Flores, writer of Coyote America and Wild New World, has spent his profession exploring the connections between folks and the pure world in America and the West. His books have gained a number of awards together with the Rachel Carson Environmental E-book Prize and the Sigurd Olson Nature Writing Prize. The writer of 11 books, Flores has additionally written for the New York Instances, the Los Angeles Instances, the Chicago Tribune and Time Journal.
His presentation on the award ceremony will delve into how coyotes have preserved wildness in fashionable America, making a case for understanding wild animals as distinctive people.
Quinn, who lives in St. Paul, Minnesota, with their husband and two younger daughters, writes private and lyric essays. They method nonfiction from a journalistic background, together with a deep appreciation of fact telling.
The successful submission This Is How You Disappear is an essay mixing private narrative, reporting and historic analysis to discover trauma, ecological collapse and reminiscence within the California desert, significantly across the Salton Sea. For over 20 years, Quinn has documented the area by way of writing, pictures and movie, bearing witness to its shifting landscapes and layered histories.
Quinn earned their Grasp of Effective Arts at Portland State College, they usually have been a 2021 McKnight Artist Fellow, a 2023 Writing Resident at Artwork Omi, and a 2022 Tin Home Winter Workshop Scholar. Their work has appeared in Fourth Style, Vela, Longreads and elsewhere.
Waterston mentioned that Quinn’s piece “guarantees fearless writing that skillfully enlists the panorama of the Salton Sea as backdrop to their quest for understanding” an emotional second of their life.
Piatote, a Nez Perce scholar, author, professor and language activist, may also converse in the course of the Waterston occasion on the Museum. Piatote is the writer of two books, together with a mixed-genre assortment entitled The Beadworkers: Tales (2019), which was featured on NPR and was chosen because the “one learn” for a number of college and group applications. Devoted to Nez Perce language and literature, she cofounded the Designated Emphasis in Indigenous Language Revitalization on the College of California Berkeley, the place she teaches English and Comparative Literature.
“We’re honored to welcome our excellent winner Heather Quinn and award-winning authors Dan Flores and Beth Piatote to this yr’s Waterston Desert Writing Prize ceremony,” mentioned Museum Government Director Dana Whitelaw, Ph.D. “Their passionate exploration of the pure world aligns completely with the Prize’s mission to rejoice and elevate desert landscapes by way of the ability of literary nonfiction.”
The 2 finalists for this yr’s Prize are Taylor Luck and Charles Hood.
Luck, a journalist dwelling within the Center East, blends narrative writing with genuine storytelling. His submission, Past the Jordan, focuses on modern-day Jordan and the numerous teams of individuals navigating a area in upheaval. Luck weaves his private journey of belonging into the narrative.
Situated in Palmdale, California, Hood has traveled the world for his writings, from the excessive Arctic to the South Pole, and from Tibet to West Africa and the Amazon. His submission, Desert Hearth, takes him nearer to house because it delves into the previous, current and future position of fireplace in Western American deserts.
A author with continued contributions to nonfiction prose about desert areas, Hood is being acknowledged this yr for the first-ever Obsidian Prize, a $2,000 award in honor of his contributions to the Waterston Desert Writing Prize. A prolific poet and essayist, Hood has written a number of books, together with the essay assortment A Salad Solely the Satan Would Eat: The Joys of Ugly Nature, which was named the Nonfiction E-book of the Yr by the editors of Foreword guide assessment.
In 2020, the Excessive Desert Museum—which has lengthy hosted occasions for the Prize—adopted this system. The mission and targets of the Prize complement these of the Excessive Desert Museum, emphasizing the significance of defending deserts and creating vital conversations in regards to the points affecting them.
To be taught extra in regards to the Waterston Desert Writing Prize and to buy your tickets to the Waterston Desert Writing Prize Ceremony, go to: highdesertmuseum.org/waterston-prize.
ABOUT THE MUSEUM:
The HIGH DESERT MUSEUM opened in Bend, Oregon in 1982. It brings collectively wildlife, cultures, artwork, historical past and the pure world to convey the marvel of North America’s Excessive Desert. The Museum is a 501(c)3 nonprofit group accredited by the American Alliance of Museums, is a Smithsonian Affiliate, was the 2019 recipient of the Western Museums Affiliation’s Charles Redd Award for Exhibition Excellence and was a 2021 recipient of the Nationwide Medal for Museum and Library Service. To be taught extra, go to highdesertmuseum.org and comply with us on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok.
