Point Reyes Books

The 2011 Geography of Hope Conference celebrating “Reflections on Water” takes place in Point Reyes Station, California. The event includes readings and literary conversations with leading writers, artists, and nautralists, public art installations, a film festival, and field trips to farms, wetlands, and wilderness areas in and around Point Reyes National Seashore. Meals prepared with Marin’s most delicious farm products will be served at two dinners at Toby’s Feed Barn during the conference.

February 25-27: For the first time, The Geography of Hope Conference includes an exciting Film Festival which promises to be a fascinating and lively introduction to the subject of “Reflections on Water.” The festival opens with the film The River Why, a story of a young man’s search for self-discovery in the Oregon wilderness. It stars Zach Gilford as a funny and appealing young fly fisherman determined to move out of the shadow of his renowned outdoorsman father, played by William Hurt.

March 18-20: The Geography of Hope Literary Conference is co-chaired by award-winning poets Robert Hass and Brenda Hillman. The literary conference also features a host of other established and emerging writers including William Least Heat-Moon, Tom Farber, Eddy L. Harris, Julia Whitty, Peter Gleick, Philip Fradkin, Tim Palmer, and ecopoets Evelyn Reilly and Johnathan Skinner. The authors will participate in lively panels and more intimate lunchtime conversations with participants

February 24–May 31: Two new and unique Art Exhibitions will be part of the 2011 conference. Outdoor public art projects will be installed at selected sites in Point Reyes Station. On display from February 24–May 31, they will be viewed by thousands of visitors to West Marin. A separate group show at Toby’s Gallery on March 4–29 will showcase the work of additional artists in a variety of media exploring the nature and notions of water.

Robert Hass was Poet Laureate of the United States from 1995–1997. He has written numerous volumes of poetry, including most recently The Apple Trees at Olema: New and Selected Poems (2010). Hass has translated the poetry of Czeslaw Milosz as well as the work of other poets and essayists. He is an inspiring writing teacher and a professor at the University of California at Berkeley.

Brenda Hillman is the author of Practical Water (2010) as well as seven other volumes of poetry. Her work has been called “eclectic, mercurial, sensuous, and luminescent.” She has received awards and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Poetry Society of America, along with a Bay Area Book Reviewer's Award, a Pushcart Prize, and the Delmore Schwartz Memorial Award.