Deschutes Land Trust partners with Experience Works to bring writer and teacher, Mary Sojourner as Writer in Residence

Central Oregon community organizations, the Deschutes Land Trust and Experience Works, combined efforts to place Mary Sojourner, national author and NPR commentator, at the Deschutes Land Trust as Writer in Residence. 

One of Sojourner’s first tasks was to launch the new Deschutes Land Trust blog, Trusting the Land, with her initial post Earth Alchemy. She will write for the Deschutes Land Trust website; research and write articles for national publications; create media and public relations materials---and teach twice-monthly Writing from Place workshops. 

“We’re incredibly excited to have Mary join our work,” Brad Chalfant, Executive Director says. “She has written about and for Western lands for twenty-five years.  She brings not just writing and teaching skills to the Deschutes Land Trust, but rapidly growing knowledge of Central Oregon forests, deserts and waterways.”

“I’m equally excited by this opportunity,” Sojourner says, “especially since I believe so strongly in the work of Land Trusts. I’ve read, written and taught for many of them at both local and national levels. Land Trusts are more than good neighbors—they keep the greater neighborhood alive.”

The Deschutes Land Trust has been keeping the greater Central Oregon neighborhood alive for 15 years since its beginning at the Deschutes Brewery in 1995. It is fitting that Sojourner will begin teaching her Writing from Place workshops on the anniversary of the Land Trust’s founding.

“We will meet on the gorgeous properties the Deschutes Land Trust is protecting and let the land tell us its stories. Writing from Place is for beginning adults and kids and for those writers who want to move into writing about the land. I’ve taught this workshop for twenty years—in the Southwest and the Mojave Desert—and I’m delighted to begin teaching it here in a vastly different landscape.”

The Deschutes Land Trust conserves land for wildlife, scenic views, and local communities. Experience Works places older, experienced workers at job sites that can offer new opportunities and training to help them secure permanent jobs. “This is an incredible opportunity for me,” Sojourner says, “to finally learn the inner workings of operating a Land Trust and the lands we all love in Central Oregon.” 

For more information about Experience Works, visit www.experienceworks.org. To register for a Writing from Place workshop, contact the Deschutes Land Trust at (541) 330-0017 or visit www.deschuteslandtrust.org.

The Deschutes Land Trust conserves land for wildlife, scenic views, and local communities. As Central Oregon’s only nationally accredited and locally-based land trust, the Deschutes Land Trust has protected more than 7,700 acres in since 1995. For more information on Deschutes Land Trust, contact us at (541) 330-0017 or visit www.deschuteslandtrust.org.

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