ORION MAGAZINE
LITERARY AND POETRY EDITOR, 1993-2001
Read “Authentic Wealth” on this site
ORION | People and Nature
Orion website
I had the pleasure of serving as the literary and poetry editor for Orion magazine for eight years,1993-2001. My colleagues on the editorial board were Professor George K. Russell, Emerson “Chip” Blake, Aina Barten, Peter Sauer, and Marion Gilliam. For our poetry publications, I collaborated with the wonderful poet/essayist Christopher Merrill. Together, we published many of America’s acclaimed writers and poets including Terry Tempest Williams, Barry Lopez, Pattianne Rogers, Judith Nies, Patricia Brady, John Elder, Alison Hawthorne Deming, Robert Finch, Mary Oliver, Janise Ray, Gary Snyder, and John Hanson Mitchell, among many others.
Some highlights
One highlight of my years at Orion was collaborating with historian Judith Nies to edit her article “The Black Mesa Syndrome: Indian Lands, Black Gold,” for the magazine’s summer 1998 edition. This piece, describing how the Navajo and Hopi communities were coerced into relinquishing lands to mining interests, remains one of the magazine’s most frequently cited pieces. It was a finalist for the John Oakes Award in Distinguished Environmental Journalism, and is included in the The Future of Nature (Milkweed Press, 2008). The article also became an element in Judith’s acclaimed book, Unreal City.
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Another highlight was collaborating with Steve Chase to develop the Autumn 1996 issue, “Nature and Justice,” which introduced an ongoing focus on environmental justice into Orion’s pages. Steve long served as Director of the Advocacy for Social Justice & Sustainability program in the Dept. of Environmental Studies at Antioch University New England. He is an activist, organizer, Quaker, lecturer, and editor.