This press release comes from writer Tom Rea, coordinator of the 2008 Equality State Book Festival in Casper:
A panel of nationally known fly-fishing writers will top the attractions of the Equality State Book Festival Sept. 18-20 in Casper.
Anglers, readers, and the generally curious won’t want to miss the public conversation Saturday morning, Sept. 20 at the Nicolaysen Art Museum in Casper, among four writers who know their streams, fish, flies, and people so well. Leading the discussion will be Casper’s own book-readin’ fisherman, Bill Mixer.
Join Mixer along with John Gierach, Ted Leeson, Mallory Burton, and Chad Hanson for an hour and a half of talk, tips, half-truths, and questions.
Gierach, of northern Colorado, is the longtime columnist for Fly Rod and Reel magazine and author of Standing in the River Waving a Stick, Dances with Trout, Sex Death and Fly-fishing, Trout Bum, and fourteen more. Gierach writes book after book filled with fish and good humor, and makes both look easy.
Oregon angler Leeson’s approach to fly fishing is sometimes more how-to than Gierach’s, for example The Benchside Introduction to Fly Tying, and other times more meditative, as The Habit of Rivers: Reflections on Trout Streams and Fly Fishing and Jerusalem Creek: Fly Fishing through Driftless Country.
Mallory Burton has worked as a fishing guide in Wyoming and Montana and lives in Prince Rupert, British Columbia where, when not fishing, she works in the provincial schools. The stories in her book Green River Virgins and other Passionate Anglers often star women coping with men who think girls can't fish.
Casper College sociology instructor Hanson’s new book of nearly true fishing stories, Swimming With Trout, featuring a narrator named Chad and his wife named Lynn, came out last year and has been winning him some riparian fame outside the classroom.
The panel will start at 10:30 a.m. Saturday, Sept. 20 at the Nic, and is just one of several panels, readings, and a daylong book fair at the same place that day. For details on the authors and the three days of readings, talks, panels, banquet, poetry slam, book fair, workshops and more at Casper College and around town, check out www.equalitystatebookfest.com or contact the festival organizers listed above
