Holiday Inn - Garden City Ballroom C [
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9:00am MDT
The Natural World Memoir: Discoveries of Self and Other in the Wild
Moderators 
Mike signed up for a field ornithology class during his final year studying English at The Evergreen State College. He hoped the class would make him a better observer. Instead he fell in love with the lifestyle and he's been chasing birds across the American west ever since. He is...
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Paddle4Ever
Sea kayaking the Inside Passage is Susan Conrad's jam, having completed two approximately 1,200-mile solo through-paddles from Washington State to SE Alaska. She has authored three books about the Inside Passage and loves sharing her personal stories not only to inspire people but...
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Julie Riddle grew up in northwestern Montana, where she helped build her family's log home. She is the author of the memoir, The Solace of Stones: Finding a Way through Wilderness, published in April 2016 by the University of Nebraska Press/American Lives Series. The Solace of Stones explores...
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Bruce Smith retired from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 2004 after a thirty‑year career as a wildlife manager and scientist. He was named Wyoming’s Conservationist of the Year in 1997 and received the John and Frank Craighead Wildlife Conservation Award in 2005. Besides...
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Jon Turk received his Ph.D. in chemistry in 1971 and wrote the first environmentalscience textbook in North America. He has since engaged in extreme outdoor expeditions. Jon’scircumnavigation of Ellesmere with Erik Boomer was nominated in 2012 by NationalGeographic as one of...
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11:00am MDT
Animal Instincts
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Clinical Assistant Professor, SLHOS, The University of Montana
Novelist
Sid Gustafson is a Montana novelist and veterinarian. His latest novel, Swift Dam, celebrates the native land and the natives who survive as they have survived through time; perilously.
In addition to teaching equine behavior at The University of Guelph and writing for the New...
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Rachel Toor is the author of four works of nonfiction and one novel. Her most recent book is Misunderstood: Why The Humble Rat May Be Your Best Pet Ever (FSG 2016). She is a professor in the graduate creative writing program at Eastern Washington University. Her work has been published...
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Kipp Wessel’s debut novel, First, You Swallow the Moon, won BookLife Prize in Fiction and Writer's Digest Book awards. He earned a Fiction Fellowship and his MFA from The University of Montana. His short fiction has been published in a dozen commercial and literary publications...
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2:00pm MDT
Mothers Who Write
Moderators 
Emily Withnall is a writer, teacher, and queer solo parent of two daughters. Originally from the high mountain desert of New Mexico, she survives the winter and cold of Montana by writing dark essays and odes to the sun. She currently serves as a writing fellow with the Center for...
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Sarah Aswell is a writer and stand-up comedian who holds an MFA in creative writing from the University of Montana. Her work has appeared in places like The New Yorker, Forbes, USA Today, Vulture, McSweeney's, National Lampoon, and MAD Magazine. She was voted Best Writer in Missoula...
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Emily H. Freeman earned her MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Minnesota, and has taught writing at various schools and nonprofits in MN, NY, and MT. She has received grants and fellowships from the MN State Arts Board, the Anderson Center for Interdisciplinary Studies, the...
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Elke Govertsen is the Founder and Editor of Mamalode. She has been featured in Real Simple, Where Women Create, 406 Woman, Ad Tech, and Entrepreneur
. She speaks on a variety of topics, from social media to overcoming poverty. She also leads the Learn As You Go lecture series for small businesses and is passionate about economic development in Montana. Her special skills include extreme bootstrapping, overcoming obstacles and crea...
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Stephanie Land is the instant best selling author of "MAID: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother's Will to Survive." As a freelancer, her work has been featured in The New York Times, New York Review of Books, The Washington Post, The Guardian, Vox, Salon, and many other outlets. She...
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4:00pm MDT
Exploring Gender in Poetry and Prose
Moderators 
I am a new emigre to Mizzoula from Canada, looking to enjoy every moment of the Montana experience. I have volunteered most of my life and I know that this is the quintessential way to meet new friends and to enter a new community. I am a writer of LGBT fiction, a partner in a new...
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Teresa Carmody’s writing includes fiction, creative nonfiction, inter-arts collaborations, and hybrid forms. She is the author of three books, including Maison Femme: a fiction (2015) and The Reconception of Marie (2020). Her work has appeared in The Collagist, Los Angeles Review...
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Paula Marie Coomer is a poet, novelist, sometimes food writer, and a writer of short fictions. The daughter of over two hundred years of Kentucky Appalachian farmers and mixed-blood heritage,she lived most of her childhood in the industrial Ohio River town of New Albany, Indiana...
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Professor of English, The College of Idaho
Diane Raptosh’s fourth book of poetry, American Amnesiac, published by Etruscan Press, was long-listed for the 2013 National Book Award. She is the recipient of three fellowships in literature from the Idaho Commission on the Arts. She served as Boise Poet Laureate (2013), as well...
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Poet and journalist from the Pacific Northwest.
