Reintroducing Winter 2017 Featured Author: Robert Michael Pyle

It is with immense pleasure that we announce the featured author for our Winter 2017, 25th Anniversary issue: Robert Michael Pyle.

Robert Michael Pyle is the author of 17 books, including Chasing Monarchs, Where Bigfoot Walks, and Wintergreen, which won the John Burroughs Medal. A Yale-trained ecologist and a Guggenheim fellow, he is a full-time writer living in SW Washington.

His words first appeared in Camas in the Fall 2002 issue in the poem “Lingua Rediviva.” And in Spring 2005, we were lucky enough to not only feature three of his poems — “Horseback at Dawn: Monument Valley,” “In the City of Rocks,” and “Moonlight Redux: or, Gone for Good” — but also an interview, “On Rage and Writing,” with Monica Wright. 

In the interview, he discusses his relationship with nature and how he translates that onto the page. At one point, he admonishes the kind of civilians of the greater natural world we’ve become: “Today we are deeply environmentally illiterate. There was a time when you had to be a good naturalist or you died. We’ve traded our mammalian vigilance for comfort and security, and we can’t get that back. But we don’t have to be so ignorant.” His quote and writing are what Camas continually strives to do with the work we print: to provide a home for those writers that tie us to the particular places and environments we call home in the West. 

We very much look forward to including Mr. Pyle’s words within our pages once again and are positive you’ll all be excited as we are for the follow up interview to accompany his writing.

Welcome back, Mr. Pyle.