Episode 26-Finding creative flow with Amy Irvine Emerging Form

Sometimes, a project just comes together in the most organic, meant-to-be way, and nothing can stop it. What’s that like? We explore that experience in this episode with our guest, Amy Irvine, who co-wrote Air Mail: Letters of Politics, Pandemics & Place with our previous guest, Pam Houston. We’ll talk about how the form emerged--what began as an epistolary exercise became a fully fledged book. We’ll talk about how creative endeavors can create friendships. We also talk about her previous book, Desert Cabal, about backlash against women writers and more. 
Amy Irvine won the Orion Book Award and Colorado Book Award for her memoir, Trespass: Living at the Edge of the Promised Land Her next book, Desert Cabal: A New Season in the Wilderness, is a feminist response to Edward Abbey’s Desert Solitaire, and one of Orion’s “25 Most-Read Stories of the Decade.” It was also added to Outside Magazine’s Adventure Canon and named by Backpacker as one of its New Wilderness Classics. During the pandemic, Irvine co-authored Air Mail: Letters of Politics, Pandemics & Placewith Pam Houston; the book is forthcoming in October 2020, as is Amy’s latest essay for Orion: “Close to the Bone.” Irvine teaches in the Mountainview Low-Residency MFA program at Southern New Hampshire University. In addition to frequently teaching for Orion Magazine, she has taught at Western Colorado University, the Free Flow Institute, Whitman College’s Semester in the West, the University of Utah’s Environmental Humanities Program at Rio Mesa, and Fishtrap’s Outpost. Irvine lives and writes off-grid on a remote mesa in southwest Colorado, just spitting distance from her Utah homeland.
Amy Irvine
Air Mail: Letters of Politics, Pandemics & Place
Desert Cabal
Desert Solitaire
Pam Houston


This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit emergingform.substack.com/subscribe