The Waterston Desert Writing Prize announces that Dahr Jamail, author of The End of Ice: Bearing Witness and Finding Meaning in the Path of Climate Disruption, will join the A Desert Conversation panel at the June 24 awards event for the 2020 Waterston Desert Writing Prize. He will also lead a discussion during free afternoon workshops in conjunction with the Prize awards. The End of Ice, Jamail’s newest book, is one of the Smithsonian Magazine’s Top-10 Science Books of 2019 and was a finalist for the PEN Award for Science Writing in 2020. Jamail joins renowned lepidopterist, biologist, teacher and author Robert Michael Pyle on the panel.
About Dahr Jamail
Dahr Jamail is a recipient of numerous honors, including the Martha Gellhorn Award for Journalism for his work in Iraq and a 2018 Izzy Award for Outstanding Achievement in Independent Media for his reporting on the climate crisis. He is also the author of Beyond the Green Zone: Dispatches from an Unembedded Journalist in Occupied Iraq, The Will to Resist: Soldiers Who Refuse to Fight in Iraq and Afghanistan and The Mass Destruction of Iraq: Disintegration of a Nation (co-authored with William Rivers Pitt). Jamail spent more than a year reporting from Iraq, as well as from Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Turkey over the past 15 years. He also is an accomplished mountaineer who has worked as a volunteer rescue ranger on Denali.
Jamail will be one of three noted panelists taking part in “A Desert Conversation” as part of the annual award event Wednesday, June 24, 2020 at the High Desert Museum in Bend. The theme this year is “Climate Change in the Desert.” The third panelist will be announced soon.
About the Waterston Desert Writing Prize
The submission window for the 2020 Waterston Desert Writing Prize closes April 1. Now in its sixth year, the Prize honors creative nonfiction that illustrates artistic excellence, sensitivity to place and desert literacy, with the desert as both subject and setting. The Prize recognizes the vital role deserts play worldwide in the ecosystem and the human narrative. Submission guidelines and a link to submit are available at waterstondesertwritingprize.org. The Prize winner will receive a $2,500 cash award, a reading and reception at the High Desert Museum on June 24 in Bend and a residency at PLAYA at Summer Lake, Oregon.
To donate or for more information about the Waterston Desert Writing Prize, visit waterstondesertwritingprize.org, email info@waterstondesertwritingprize.org or call 541-480-3933.