called out of darkness

Yes, the angel thing. I am definitely transpired by angels just about now. They are finding me, lifting me gently and surprisingly and without expectation or payment through the upside down skyfall that has become my life. "Called out of Darkness: A Spiritual Confession" by Anne Rice. Staring at me from my office desk. Lots of white. Tonight I've been invited to read poetry at Space 120 bar/art center in Palm Springs. Tomorrow I've been invited to help put together "The Common Good" e-zine with College of the Desert students, then on to my Inlandia Writers workshop. Saturday I'm teaching a poetry of place workshop at Mt. San Antonio College. Sunday I'll be part of a collaborative desert writing/arts activity. I'm sending the last of the pages for the COD Solstice lit-mag, 2009-10, to the printer in San Diego. My friend Reggie, artistic director at UCR-CMP museum of photography, calls me just to say hi. Little things keep me moving along and busy.

Less than a month ago, I attended an event - with Philip - at UCR-Palm Desert, featuring the vampire-turned-angel author Anne Rice. I seem to have been having an interesting synchronicity with Anne Rice in recent months. I've never read her books. I am not a vampire fan. Not even close. I know she's a major author, and from picking up a copy of her newest book in which she examines the roots and basis and memories and continuation of her early Catholic faith. Like me, she was imbedded in Catholic ceremony and rhetoric, a hushed and gothic thing across the years and locations. Me, in humble and eerie, palm-tree-santa-ana-wind laced, mysterious downtown San Bernardino where as a little girl I was pushed into a dark confessional booth in an empty church, lit only by the votive candles flickering beneath a statue of the Virgin Mary with the baby Christ. I could hear the tall palms scratching the church's brick spyres, a rather old building for a very new, Inland Empire settlement. Overlaced atop an old cienega, a murky, lowland swamp. Near the present day Central City Mall. I know now that a Serrano Indian massacre took place there, and Mormons from Utah tried to claim it, but returned home when recalled by their prophet after a few short years. Willie Boy was held in the jail there one time, and the area is now one of the highest per-capita crime city districts in the country.

Anne Rice lives in Rancho Mirage now, not far from me, having re-located after the Hurricane Katrina armaggedon in New Orleans and the death of her poet-husband Stan Rice. I've met her cool and talented son Christopher at the Palm Springs Book Fest in recent years, chatted him up and looking forward to reading his newest book. The desert book came out in November. I learned that after our first reading/event in downtown Riverside in early December, Anne Rice had just been signing her new book at the Mission Inn next door. And when I went to sign copies of Puritan @ the Palm Desert Barnes and Noble shortly after that, the sales clerk told me Anne Rice had just been there signing books the day before; he'd displayed my book next to hers - prime real-estate, he smiled - and he gave me the last copy the store had of her handsomely-bound Vampire Chronicles Trilogy, signed. As a gift. I hadn't even asked for it.

I read in the Inland Empire Weekly that Anne Rice had done most of the writing for her memoir at the Mission in, during 2007-2008...even more interesting because that was the precise time that the Inlandia anthology came out, and that I began to do some serious hanging out and hanging in with the poetry scene in downtown Riverside at Jeff's apartment and Back to the Grind and Wednesday night poetry with my friend Joel Lamore's group. Sitting in the apartment, studying the moroccan-era spires of the Riverside Art Museum, Congregational Church, and other stunning, late 19th-early 20th century landmark buildings of the former Citrus Capital of the west, and jewel of southern California, in this downtown district of Riverside, California, next to the glorious Mission Inn, which stands to this day in priceless, antique-and-history-filled homage to an era gone by, and a new era unfolding. Yes, that's right. Anne Rice had picked up the energy, or perhaps imported it, and wrote most of her novel during extensive stays at the Mission Inn, and there I was, floating around next door, doing my things, connecting, breaking out in my own little Inland Empire gothic swirl of a poetry and writing scene. Meeting so many cool people and connecting to community which has continued to proliferate in my divided-between-the-desert-and-I.E.-life to this day.

For more than three years, it's been a back and forth life, that hour drive from one of the most intensive, stunning deserts in the world, into a supremely windy pass and a wall of blowing sand, through a windmill farm, past a canyon raging with Whitewater, past a huge, multi-storied casino on the Morongo Indian Reservation, through a gentle pass where snow often falls in winter, and rain much more often, then a thrilling mountain ride on a narrow road through the sharp and dangerous Badlands, and soothing out into the former Mexican rancheria of Moreno Valley, past Box Springs and Cahuilla Mountain, and into the valley of Riverside, nurtured by the oft-overlooked Santa Ana River. De Anza's little road. Wow. And Mike calls me late at night while I talk on and on in nonsense rhyhmes. Wendy calls to check on me. Day by day, friend after friend reaches out to me. What did I do to deserve this? Breaking the silence of desert homesteading. And Lindsey, Cahuilla Indian who's in my writing class, gives me a beautiful, huge braid of sweetgrass to burn, and a burden basket to hang above my front door, that she just picked up at the Albuquerque Powwow of the Nations last week. I'm incredibly blessed, to be touched by such beauties and gestures in such a time as this, and I'm floored. No words.

And so, the Anne Rice symphony plays in my mind, a thread, a direction, an inspiration beyong my own imaginings. Her book, about finding and reconfirming faith, and moving from vampires to angels. Transforming her fascination with otherworldly dimensions and energies that guide us with unseen hands, from darkness into the light. And I write about this not to be a name dropper, because as I said I haven't read her vampire books. But I am inspired by her meditation on the power of angels and the power of angels in my life in recent months and recent weeks. A music unheard but felt. A confession I no longer need to make, because I've not shame, not sinned, and not as alone carrying such burdens as I once thought I was. And I can put the heavy rocks down and I can sit on a 1950's era postmodern-architecture lawn chair I found at an abandoned house long ago, at 1 a.m., and fall into the lullaby of the hypnotic, full moon. Blazing its way through yet another stunning night-cloud. My feet resting and safe on the level and clean cement around the pool. Moon in the water. The way I like.

Driving to Palm Springs yesterday. I live in a free float fog now. Alone in the house and with my cell phone by my head as I sleep. It's not easy to sleep even when I'm beyond exhausted, as I was last night. I bury my face in Phil's clothes sometimes. I talk to him out loud, most pointedly to ask questions. I almost....see him sitting in the rocking chair in my room, one of his favorite hangs. I touch the last of the avocados that he bought on his last trip to Clark's organic store. It's very ripe now and must be eaten soon or become inedible. Will do. Days don't have much structure. I exist from point to point. I have a full schedule that pleases me. The culmination of my years as a teacher, professor, and more recently, book editor and writer and lecturer and photographer and artistic collaborator and so forth. It's a different story every day, which is both fun and also at times exasperating and imbalancing. So I write something new and make up a new act each day for the scenes that continue to unfold.

Like wings. Sky transformation. Yesterday the weather shift. I had to get up early and was surprised by a phone call from Eduardo, artist-poet-organizer extraordinaire, a COD student. Inviting me to come the the campus FAME club meeting. Yes, I will and did. A wonderful Eng 1A class at 12:30, discussing symbolism in Silko's novel "Ceremony," and enjoying so much that the students were really understanding the importance of the novel on a personal, individual level. Then off to give a lecture on the desert book at Palm Springs Library. Wind had become loud. Freeway driving, the usual blowing around. Down Sunrise, into calm, and meeting my friend Julie Warren, the activities director at the library. A wonderful talk, sold books, met nice people, and was so heartened to see friends Lee Balan, one-of-a-kind artiste and poet/writer, and Phil Polazzo, cool hippy-generation author of the fantastic novel Hunga Dunga. Four of my creative writing students also came, and we met on the grass outside afterwards, watching an incredible, powerful comet/tornado/spinning top cloud in the sky....talking of how this was a spirit thing, that it seemed like a person looking down. I had thought the same thing earlier when spotting magnificent wing-shapes in the late afternoon cloud formations while driving to Palm Springs. Philip, shielding and carrying me along from one point to the next, which is about how I am living my days and nights right now.

I live for the wing brushes touching down on my from all directions now, unexpectedly. Angels are looking out for me and I don't know from where they come or why I deserve, but here they are. Tarah comes over Monday night, gives me extra hugs, hangs out with me, just because she wants to. We revive our always super-close mother/daughter bonds. My friend Susanne in Las Vegas sends a beautiful card of a sand dune to express her condolences and give me hugs. Cyrus calls on and off from Ashland and we delve into literary sub-topics and discuss my latest lectures and talks, his work as an audio-book producer at Blackstone Audio. My brothers Pat and Jerry, just returned from a weekend in Death Valley, post one incredible black/white sand dune picture after another on facebook. Another parallel synchronicity. I was just there a few weeks ago with Phil, in another big windstorm and spring storm, and we also took photos at Zabriskie Point and the San Dunes. The flowers were just starting to come out. I drove south, studying the ancient river channel that flows south, or should I say north: the mysterious, snake-shaped Amargosa River, flowing southward through a valley east of Death Valley...then looping back in a long arc to join Death Valley in its southernmost wedge, 100 miles south.

And I should add, that for the Timbisha Shoshone, whose homeland this has long been: this it Tuppuuh. A place of life. Of rebirth. Of the center of all creation and sustainability. The circle traces without breaking, through canyons and sand to join itself again. Like an angel, picking up the broken-winged. Shape-shifting through the sky on its own whim. Surrender to this, on your knees. Hummingbirds in the garden, a few dog bones for the dogs, the wind picks up suddenly here this afternoon, I sweep thorns from the drive. Pick plastic bottles from the pool. Sweep the dirt Shasta dug out of the garden last night back into place. Red ocotillo flowers peer at me. Sunflowers are so wise. And the orange poppies have landed in my yard too. They won't last long.

(photo by Lee Balan - taken in the sky above Palm Springs, 4.27.10)

Poetry Reading Palm Springs Weds 4.28

I'll be there along with the local Global Alchemy poetry/art members....reading poetry. Show starts @ 9 PM must be 21+. Space 120 in Palm Springs.

It's My Dad's Birthday

My therapist told me during our phone session last Friday that I should find the biggest rock I can find, and carry that around with me when I feel the burden of Phil's disappearance/abandonment/death/the whole thing, whatever you want to call it...and then set it down. An ancient ritual for those in mourning - to personify and articulate and validate the weight of such a thing....and the relief, inevitable, of setting the heavy rock down. So far, I only have a few big chunks of crystal that Phil had found on some of our recent desert hikes. They're not even close to heavy enough. They're too pretty, too white. I need a jag of concrete, I think, something uneven and ugly and brutalized. That or an elegant seashell.

Lots of coffee. lots of it, this morning and continuing until now. My mind must, must, must sharpen so I can sluice through my impressive workload today, tomorrow, for the next days on end through, pretty much, the end of May. Book presentations and signings, Palm Springs Library tomorrow night - poetry reading with Global Alchemy friends that I'll be at Weds night, also in Palm Springs, at a bar, Space 120(beer, glorious beer), Inlandia Writers Workshop in Riverside Thursday night, Mt. San Antonio College writer's conference on Saturday morning - I'm teaching a poetry of place workshop - and back to Riverside on Sunday for what will be a very cool desert writing workshop - I'm partaking - with multimedia artists and UCR MFA students, sponsored by the UCR CA Museum of Photography and the Sweeney Art Museum.
Diet coke and poring through bills, too. I was numb at the LA Times Bookfest last Saturday...signing books and chatting people up, an old friend from BLM firefighting days looked me up, that was great...was I even there.

How can this house weigh so much. Over 100 degrees today. I rode my bike in the mid-day noon for half an hour. My body feels like it's hauled firehose over a series of 12,000 foot passes in the high Sierras. Sucking on low oxygen altitudes. Chilled by snow, melted by high thin sun. Except there's no fun backpacking adventure in this one. I'm a beast of burden. The walls and windows close in with this kind of heat. Phil ditched out of the rocket ride right before summer cinched its tight belt around me. It was spring and flowers were alive. Now it's summer and it's only going to get hotter day by day, month by month until deep into 2010 fall. Anticipating fall. How much more of this can I go? I was burned out a year ago. Thought I had returned. It will be a rough fire season, I can tell. The tall weeds, mega-rain, are already brown and will burn too well. Again.

Mom comes by mid-afternoon. I'm staring at piles of bills. I'm struggling to get files for Solstice lit-mag to the printer so that the COD lit-mag can be printed up in time for a big event on campus for contributors on May 11th. I got it done. I need to email my creative writing students. I need to post new forum threads for English 1A classes online. They're writing a lit analysis of symbolism in Leslie Marmon Silko's novel, Ceremony. I was unable to teach the book last week - catching myself too imbedded and stung and impotent in the sickening irony of....a novel of a post-modern-era young man struggling with identity, mental illness, and inability to get his life together, suicidal. I told my students. This hits too close to home. The novel has a beautiful, healing motion to it. My life goes the other, wrong direction on this one, strange dry wash discourse, datcourse, not a course but is. Stay away for now.

Mom leaves. It's Dad's birthday. He cancelled our planned dinner at the Esmerelda Resort in Indian Wells tonight because they're getting ready to go to San Francisco for a brief getaway very early tomorrow morning. So I email him. Happy Birthday Dad. Have fun. I tell Dad in an email that I love him. I love you, Phil said. I really, really love you. He told me. A few days earlier. Hugged me extra long. We ARE going to be together, always. I see now. He was actually saying goodbye. How can a day, before the day, make so much sense, but only in retrospect. He knew that my #1 hangup in life was fear of abandonment. And he left. Imagine that. Is it possible to feel so left behind by someone 25 years old? Who I met and knew for the past three years...go ahead and tell me I lost my head. Yeah, and I'll say we just saw Alice In Wonderland after a hike to Tahquitz Waterfall, dinner at Native Foods. And it was good. Beheadings befell. And there was us two, digging the show. Caterpillar. Butterfly. I want only to sit him down and ask questions and get answers that aren't zen koans, impossible riddles that may or may not lead me to enlightenment. Cupid, you weren't in the movie. What sucker punch did you blow.

Simplify. I have zero capacity to cook anything beyond toast - which I did last night, eating the last of a loaf of La Brea Bakery sourdough, with avocado - I order a Z-Pizza, to be delivered. Last time I had Z-Pizza, just a few weeks ago, Phil did the ordering. Our usual, organic vegetarian, well-done. Like he did for most things domestic. Going to Trader Joe's last week for food - only when I was at less than zero for groceries - destroyed me. I even asked the cashier if I could get a blue balloon to take home. I ignored her questioning eyebrows. Clearly I had no small child with me. Only the one inside me: lost, sad, and unable to cry aloud in public, not quite able to be soothed by carrying around a blue balloon - biodegradable I'm happy to say - and it's still got air, smaller now, and perched on my kitchen counter. I ended up buying Phil treats: a box of cookies, and his own dark chocolate bar. One for each of us. We did things like that for each other. His cookies and mine. His candy and mine. And sharing.

What is it about the food thing, going to the store? I almost lost it in Albertson's yesterday.....when I saw his favorite chocolate chip cookies by the cash register. When I saw the cases of Fat Tire and Red Stripe beer in the cold case. Even buying beer right now feels stale and old. I can barely eat, let alone drink anything. Except for water. And I take two iron pills today, finally, doctor's orders, I'm anemic as hell. She told me, and that was weeks ago. I kind of forgot. Could be adding to my extreme, mono-like fatigue. I stare out the window. Watermarks. Desolation. Am I even here?

Now Tarah is here. She calls and comes over. After work. I'm now in my home office, staring at the computer monitor, wondering how to even begin to scroll through the formidable backlog of emails from recent weeks (nevermind the many, many phone calls I am obliged to return, both professional and personal). I'm starting at the monitor,staring out the window at hot, empty, late day desert space. Nothing has moved since noon. Frozen would be an apt adjective, yet ice can only melt here. Faster than you can keep it cold. The way a life can expire in a fractioned second, a bullet shell too fast for the hole. That was and is and grows larger with the pondering.

Tarah. Full of life and love. She brings a huge dish of pasta with four cheeses from Olive Garden, leftover from a drug-company rep who delivered the food to Dr. Younis's office today; it went mostly uneaten. I tell Tarah not to quit her job just yet. She gets incredible perks, working in a posh private practice here. You wouldn't get that anywhere else. The pasta goes well with the pizza. Perfect timing. Ice coffee now. A short break from an endless day, as I try to get as much done as possible tonight in this groundswell. Candle lit in the bedroom on a small pile of rocks. Wearing the hand acupressure t-shirt he gave me just a few weeks ago. It's soft and warm and it's better than anything else I can think of to wear right now. Last night I lay in bed, my mind just reeling: Phil isn't here. Phil is dead. How can that be? It just doesn't want to click. Let alone make sense.

Time to water the orange trees. The garden, with its lettuce heads and carrot tops and reach for the sky yellow flowers already taller than the wall separating me from neighbors next door and the swamp cooler sticking out of the wall that actually has weeds growing on it. I don't think I should tell them about it. The plants I tendered only a few weeks ago, tiny things burst into sturdiness, outlasting my care. All they need is water. The heat begs their thirst, and the tiny budded green fruits on the citrus trees are ready to grow. What bees made thee? A William Blake sort of thing. Ahhh, Sunflower.

They won't be ripe for many months, till next January. Good to see that the flower made it through to baby fruit. I will nurture them well, never mind what outcome it may bring. Water is good. I will be generous with my love, as always, and again, even if with my beautiful, concerned daughter who comes by to stir mom from her cement brick load walking for a short spell, to bring food, and wine, and hugs, and conversation and even a few jokes along with her. Like the shriveling blue balloon, I know I can still let go of this wrist-rope, and float for awhile. But not entirely away. I'm thinking Hamlet now, my favorite Shakespeare play to teach, (love the Ethan Hawke/Julia Stiles film version) and wondering about those slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. Nobler of mind, tonight.

Ten Days Ago

it's been ten days since you killed yourself
in the hills behind San Timoteo Canyon
the private investigator calls me to ask questions
the sky is a pale easter egg blue, April, I say: it's
summer overnight. Warm wind stings my eyes, the air
filled with short lived flower smells, I can't tell
what color, the color of you, I guess. These things
should grow on their own, their story shouldn't
burst through me to be told, I am compelled.
I shop alone at Trader Joe's for the first time
in months, almost incapacitated as I choose avocados,
buy hemp granola - our favorite stuff - and
wander through the aisles, suprised by bustling life.
I even ask the cashier if she'll cut a blue,
biodegradable balloon for me, as she just has
for a little girl leaping out of her mother's arms.
I water the garden, contemplate pulling lettuce.
Ten days later, I hang a redwood calendar in the
empty room where you sometimes slept. This isn't
very profound but it takes a lot of courage to
share grief when all around me the prettiest spring
we've seen in years knocks me to the ground, others
I feel sure, would not want to know the deep truths
that water me, too much to ask, no one knows why.
Ten days ago, I touched you last, and I look for
strands of reddish-blonde hair in the bed, your pillow
touches mine. And I managed to throw out the rest of
the food that you bought eleven days ago, what's left
is no longer good, and I couldn't cry today. Something
about passing the single digits, this things is two
handed now, going on to feet and the trail dead ends
the balloon string is still tied around my wrist to
keep me near the ground, is this what you wanted to know?

Cosmic Ruth and Phil

What can I say. Philip Andrew Helland, February 21, 1985 - April 9, 2010. AK to me and his friends as Phil Phonics, Lightbeam, Homie. And me. Red Arrow Gallery in Joshua Tree, March 26, 2010, drinking red wine, having fun at a poetry reading/art event, mingling with friends, Phil was stoked to meet a famous alchemist and founder of the LA Free Press, who now lives in the small town of Joshua Tree and just walked into the reading. And here it is. You can't always live up to your truth. Sometimes the best thing to do is to write your truth. Write all the way through it, falling star wish sky streak. Do it brilliantly with colors and do it well. And here it is.

The poppies, exploding orange on the Mojave Desert far below the airplane, just last Friday morning, a few hours before Philip took his life. On my way to give a presentation for No Place for a Puritan at the Western Wilderness Conference at UC Berkeley. I had been reluctant to leave. Phil hadn't been feeling well, said he had a virus or something, had been resting a lot on Thursday. I gave him a last kiss and hug and told him to take care that morning, told him to sleep in, I'd call him that night to check in. He said okay, and told me to do a great job at this prestigious and important conference, where I'd be meeting all kinds of famous environmental writers and movers and shakers, northern California style, the chance to bring the desert, the desert consciousness, to those who live in the green. Stuff Phil loved too. We'd talked endlessly about our summer plans, once the semester was/is finished at College of the Desert (where I teach), going to northern California and Oregon to check out organic farms and communities, visiting friends, networking, living green away from the weight of the summer heat soon to be upon us here.

I was astounded and moved beyond words and tones by the sudden rush of orange, near Palmdale, suddenly soothing my view of the wounds of the glaring, white hot dry lakebed I'd been absently staring at, Rosamond Dry Lake. And the poppy fields. What I knew. My immediate thought was to call Phil that afternoon and tell him we'd be going there to roll in the orange shouldered hills first thing on Monday. He'd love that, so would I. That, and the hike high above Whitewater Canyon, I couldn't wait to take him there, too, and he knew it. My phone calls that night went unanswered, and I felt uneasy. I had the worst dreams of my night that life, somehow I knew he had left me, but it didn't make sense at all. It was entirely out of synch, a rhythm gone wrong, a plane dropped out of the sky for no reason, poppies exploding more vividly in my head to take up the slack. Before I know.

Phil. My cosmic soulmate. Bringer of life, inspiration, companionship, frustrations, deeper, shared joys than I've experienced in my life. He was of so many worlds. We'd wake up in the mornings and say "homie hug," and eat organic cereal and hang out, reading vast and varied volumes of literature, go on long bike rides, take weekend adventure-trips all the time: Warner's Hot Springs, Indian Village sites in the Anza Borrego Desert, Tahquitz Canyon, Tecopa Hot Springs, hikes in the desert, hikes in the mountains, a shared spirit beyond words. A world of poppy surprises and psychedelic colors and Be Here Now and Bliss Now and deep, deep friendship. Phil was phenomenal and he had a brilliant mind, light years ahead of his years in earthly age. We had amazing intellectual discussions and also tons of fun.

He plowed through my extensive book collection, and was reading, at the time of his death, and simultanously, like I do, books by Jung, Schopenhauer, Huxley, Native American mythologies, books on medicine and alternative healing and cosmic consciousness, sociology books on globalization, poetry, and much, much more. We saw Avatar, we saw Alice in Wonderland, we saw Borat, we saw foreign films and documentaries on 2012 and sophisticated intellectual movies, too. We did it all. As much as any two friends could. All of the movies were his ideas, he hand picked them out. My netflix order list has about 200 movies ready to go, that he already pre-selected. He coordinated our weekend trips and hikes, too. He did the shopping. He ran the errands. He gave hug after hug after hug. He was my rock. He was a talented singer, musician, speaker, thinker, human being.

The yellow brittlebush soothing me as I drove through the hills Phil grew up with near Moreno Valley, knew intimately, and loved, as I did with my own desert mountains in Apple Valley. The Box Springs Mountains, filled with huge rocks and hidden springs. Yesterday, driving to his funeral and final resting place overlooking Lion Head Hill. I can imagine him directing his mother and brothers to select that spot, where into eternity he can look at the rocks, and the hawks circling over, and imagine himself at the top, getting the cosmic view of all that was around. Phil lived at the pulsing center of so many people, so many things, so many interests and talents, and so much like me, kept it together for everyone else, on a friendship level and artistically and poetically. Connecting the dots and harmonizing the blend: that was and is me, that was and is him. He inspired me, he healed me, he knew me inside and out. As I did him.

I could feel Phil comforting me with a nature hug, yesterday, and it made me cry. The narrow road through the hills. So close to the major freeways, the merge of 60 and 91 and 215, pulsing with traffic, thousands of people pouring through rushing here and there. And just to one side, behind one small hill, another world. A world of me and Phil. Yellow flowers, purple flowers, it's a beautiful spring, we had so much rain, and the light was hawk light, it was lion light, it was a walk in beauty. Phil and I walked in beauty. It was our habit, it was our life, it was our thing. Today a volcano explodes out of its frozen respite in Iceland. Planes are grounded. Ash is falling from the sky, flooding the face of land. Forever altering the familiarity of earthly things. Opening new corridors of the human soul. Like a lightbeam. Like Phil. The force of this volcano grounds planes continents away, and decides when they will fly. Like Phil. And maybe leave jet flame trails across the darkest skies, as Phil did, Phil does, Phil will continue to do.

Joshua Tree Writing Workshop, Reading, Film Event!

Saturday, April 17, 2010
Focus on Joshua Tree:
Desert Writing Workshop, Author Reading,
& Joshua Tree Film/Photography
Twentynine Palms Inn, 29 Palms, CA www.29palmsinn.com
FREE! OPEN TO THE PUBLIC!

4:00-6:00 p.m. DESERT WRITING WORKSHOP
Led by Ruth Nolan, M.A., Professor, College of the Desert
Join us for a desert-focused writing workshop focusing on composing poetry and prose by interacting with our desert surroundings and engaging the senses and creative spirit to capture the power of place in this unique setting.

6:30-8:30 p.m. DESERT AUTHORS READING:
DEANNE STILLMAN and RUTH NOLAN
• Deanne Stillman, “Rolling Stone Magazine” journalist and award-winning author of Mustang: The Saga of the Wild Horse in the American West, the bestseller Twentynine Palms: A True Story of Murder, Marines, and the Mojave,” and Joshua Tree: Desolation Tango.

• Ruth Nolan, editor of No Place for a Puritan: the literature of California’s deserts and author of Wild Wash Road and Dry Waterfall.

• Escape to Reality: 24 hrs @ 24 fps: Joshua Tree Film and
Photography screening: desert photographs taken during the 2008 and 2009 UCR-California Museum of Photography Joshua Tree National Park UCR-California Museum of Photography.

For more information on the April 17 workshop/reading/film screening at 29 Palms Inn: runolan@aol.com (760) 964-9767

All events are presented in conjunction with the UCR- Museum of Photography Joshua Tree Photo Shoot 2010: Flash Flood: a three-day interactive photo/writing event in/around Joshua Tree National Park April 17-19, 2010. Sponsored by Sweeney Art Gallery, UCRiverside, UCR CA Museum of Photography, the Inlandia Institute, College of the Desert Solstice Poets/Writer. Thanks to the 29 Palms Inn!