Brief by Central Staff
Media – May 2004 – Colorado Central Magazine
In the publishing world of the Interior West, the Northern Lights no longer shine, but a Camas may take root in the same locale.
The story starts about 20 years ago in Lander, Wyo., where the staff of High Country News was burned out and eager to get someone else to take over the operation.
There were two proposals. One came from Ed and Betsy Marston of Paonia, Colo., who wanted to increase the emphasis on environmental journalism. The other came from Don Snow and Deborah O’Connor Clow in Missoula, Mont., who envisioned a more literary journal.
The High Country Foundation directors decided to go with the Marstons, and the News moved to Paonia in 1983. A couple of years later, Snow and Clow started Northern Lights in Missoula — with some journalism, but mostly literary writing (some Central Colorado writers, among them Steve Voynick and Ed Quillen, were published in Northern Lights over the years).
Northern Lights folded last year, and as Clow writes, it “was a painful process. More than anything, I grieved the loss of this alternative voice in a time when we need every possible opportunity to express ourselves openly, courageously, and beautifully.”
She also encouraged Northern Lights readers to consider supporting Camas: The Nature of the West, a literary magazine published twice a year by the Environmental Studies Program of the University of Montana at Missoula.
Subscriptions are $10 a year or $18 for two years, and if you subscribe, you’ll get a free copy of the Fall 2003 edition while supplies last.
We haven’t seen it yet, so we can’t say how it fills the void left by the departure of Northern Lights. You can reach Camas at 406-243-5738, camas@mso.umt.edu, www.umt.edu/evst/camas, or Jeannette Ran kin Hall, Environmental Studies Program, University of Montana, Missoula MT 59812.
