From a childhood backyard to lands far away, our memories are formed alongside the unique landscapes we inhabit. This winter, we would like to invite you to reflect upon and share your connection to place through our winter writer’s series.
On This Land is an invitation to explore your connection to nature through nonfiction writing. This annual event showcases local poets and authors, ranging from school-age youth to accomplished writers. The series of selected works will be featured on our website and social media platforms and authors will be invited for a celebratory public reading at Tsunami Books in Eugene.
This series is for poems, essays, and short stories. Generally, essays are below 1,000 words, and short stories remain below 10,000. We encourage writers to submit poems or stories they could read to an audience in no more than 8-10 minutes
Submissions are due by Wednesday, January 22nd, for consideration for our public reading on Sunday, February 23rd.
Aside from the public reading, this collection of letters, poems, and stories may be shared publicly. You can opt out of having your story shared as a part of the larger project below.
Submission Form 2025
2024 Selections
Greener
by Meredith Goehring We knew it was coming but the ash still surprised us, a startling passage from vivid green into bone grey. No warning, just a sudden muting of the world several miles into the trail. Tragedy. I am shocked, suddenly winded, reminded of the sensation of lost love; the same breathless abandonment at finding there is no color on the ridges receding out to the horizon, no matter how high you go or how far you strain to see.
Read More
Windthrow
by Tom Titus I felt the storm in my body. The spinning energy generated by that colossal pinwheel of wind and moisture coming onshore moved through my being the way a willow rod bends in the hands of a water dowser. My battered left knee began to ache. This was a warm storm, a gusting exhalation that began sometime in the late-December night. I opened my bedroom window a few inches to give the wind-driven rain room to slip its animal fingers inside and massage my sleepless ears.
Read More
Like Fish in a Barrel
by Richard Chasm Pete Small’s father was a hard working logger. They lived in Olalla, but one summer Mr. Small got a logging job up on Twelve Mile Creek the other side of Camas Valley. The loggers camped all week coming home Saturday and going back to work at dawn on Monday.
Read More
A Soft Light on the McKenzie for 2024
by Edward J. Kame'enui The Lahaina fire is now underground where Pele will gather it without voice and when the wind is right and ancient warriors have their backs to her, she will release it again and follow its path in her long, alabaster white mu’umu’u.
Read More