Jon Bowermaster, back in the Antarctic

No one gets around the globe like

Jon Bowermaster

. He's back in the Antarctic this austral summer after his successful kayak trip there last year. During that trip he was on hand when the tourist ship went down and oddly he was there this year when the tourist ship went down. I'm not going to say he's bad luck but...

Read his

blog

. It's not just full of glorious photos, like that above, but also lots of information about the Antarctic. There's a terrific, and terrifying post on overfishing. 

Update from Antarcticans

One of the great pleasures of editing anthologies is the sense I have of creating a literary community around a place, subject or activity that I love. That certainly is the case with Antarctica: Life on the Ice. Recently, some of the contributors sent updates about their activities. Since their talents are varied and their interests range around the world, I thought I'd share their words about their lives. 

Slightly embarrassed to say that I am

still here in Antarctica, trying to make it through the five-month-day, but

feeling honored by being able to tag along after Jules and her

hardscrabble army of Basque liberationists, torches thrust skyward and

bodices ripped away at the shoulder. Still revising Novel #2, The Winter

of My Discount Tent, making tentative and incremental progress on

it, which is continuously undone when I discover some fatal defect in

the plot that forces me to rewrite it yet again -  Anyway.  The

hope is to have it ready for someone else's eyes by the time I leave here in

February. 

Also doing a lot of painting. Very soothing

paintings. Mostly makeovers of famous works, with an Antarctic theme. Above is Tina's World - Tina Green out at Siple Dome last season.

--Karen Joyce

I

drove the Alaska Pipeline haul road from Valdez to Deadhorse in August for a

book chapter. I'm due to start work in January as the founding director of the

Center for Art + Environment at the Nevada Museum of Art come January, but will

again be working in Australia and the Atacama Desert of Chile this next

year. 

--William Fox

The big news on my end is that my book on

meteorite hunters is set to come out in spring/summer 2009 + the reprint of

Hope is the Thing with Feathers is set to come out then too. I turned in the

last big revision of THE FALLEN SKY a couple of weeks ago, promptly got a cold

(some celebration) and I'm happily turning to some Utah essays and helping

Tarcher/Penguin plan p.r. for the books. All that to the good--a nice

counterbalance to budget cuts at Utah State, which are putting Isotope, the

magazine I edit, at some risk. I hope we'll pull through that. And if you're

not subscribing, please do! And if you have a rich uncle... 

--Chris Cokinos

I'm trying to stay put for a while and have been

living in Vail, Colorado for the last 9 months (longer than I've stayed

anywhere in the past 6 years). I'm still regularly writing book reviews and

doing other freelance writing work as it comes along...and I'm taking my stab

at yet another book proposal--this one on the topic of a literary adventure in

the footsteps of William Wordsworth. To keep my sanity (ha--and have health insurance

for a while), I'm working comms in the Eagle County 911 center--alternating

moments of hilarity and tragedy.

—Traci J. Macnamara

My last novel, Biting the Apple, came out a year

ago.  Since then I did a wonderful and challenging trip in the Peruvian

Andes and just returned from a decadent (why not spend all my money, it’s all

evaporating anyway?) trip in Sicily where the most strenuous thing I did was

navigate cobblestones (which oddly make the body ache more than rocky mountain

passes). 

--Lucy Jane Bledsoe

Kris (as in Kristen Hutchison) has been with me to Armenia a couple

times.  Last time we were there she joined the Peace Corps by leaving the

hotel and walking down the street to them.  (Weird to work in a place

where we have an active Peace Corps group deployed.)  She got into

teaching English as a second language.

Kris and I just finished a small vacation in Az.  Hiked the

desert for old time's sake read about here.

--Joe Mastroianni

Since retiring from NSF in 2005 I've mainly been keeping the boat

running that Lynn and I live on and talking to researchers and others about the

intersection of science and societal concerns regarding the Chesapeake

Bay.  We write an occasional column for a newspaper called Bay Weekly;

Lynn has assembled the columns and her photographs into a web site.  We may have a book in us, too, but despite the many

writers I sent to the Antarctic I've never done one.

--Guy Guthridge

I'm still working for UNAVCO (GPS

science support), but went part-time last year in August and have been bopping around a

bit--two months in Africa (Ethiopia and Tanzania) on project and then 'pleasure' (travel

doesn't always turn out to be fun...) and a few weeks here and there working in CA and

WY--and now am mostly working on some web content stuff at UNAVCO.  It's

kind of nice to be in one place for a while.  But I'm also ready for big adventure again.

I'm not working on any writing projects

in particular, just trying to get my creative juices flowing and periodically posting photos

and stories to myblog. 

I'm getting inspired reading about all

the writing everyone else is doing, though.  Guess I better get on it!

--Beth Bartel

So there I was writing a weekly column

for Salt Lake City. It was in the Salt Lake City Weekly and I wrote about my

favorite subject--me and me doing cheap things around Salt Lake. The column was

called "Cheap Shot."

My photo was in the paper each week and

I was beginning to get recognized around town. People bought my drinks at bars

and owners of restaurants would come out and shake my hand. Everyone hoping

that I'd mention them in my next column. Life was good. Life was great. Then I asked

the newspaper for a raise.

Now I'm delivering mail for the United

States Post Office.

--Phil Jacobsen

To read Phil’s columns go to: www.slweekly.com

Back in the Catskills

View fullsize

Late fall and winter are hiking season in the Catskills--especially if you are bushwacking. That's what I did with Connie (also known as Killer Connie, in red) and Edna on November 15 as we trudged up Mount Sherrill and North Dome. When we arrived at the trailhead in Westkill it was ten degrees out. I was not ready for the cold, even though I had on four layers. I kept all of them on during the hike and even added my down jacket on the descent! Our goal was that red canister in the background--there are canisters on the summits of all bushwack peaks in the Catskills--not a glorious view. 

There are 35 peaks over 3,500 feet in the Catskills. Lots of people have their lists and the 3500 club promotes climbing all of them. Some hike them all in the winter as well. And then there are those who climb all of the peaks in every month of the year (this can take a year or two, depending on how obsessive you are). Connie is one such hiker--she has done this grid twice and is working on her third grid. She's an amazing woman: bakes great cookies we eat at the end of each hike, runs a health club, and practices reiki. Connie is keeping my Catskill list for me. I've got a few peaks to go...

Antarctica wins Silver Medal

Antarctica: Life on the Ice has won the Silver medal from the Society of American Travel Writers! This is part of their Lowell Thomas awards in journalism. Thank you writers for  making this book such a success!

I know I have been dormant here. But the return of friends to the ice will get me going. For now, my friend Holly (who I met in 2004--she was working with a science team digging for nematodes in the Dry Valleys) is down there working with helicopters. Read her blog to hear some stories of big weather and to see some great pictures.

And I'll be back soon to describe the 2008 Gunks Reunion.