Elk River Books welcomes Ohio University professor Robert DeMott and friends who will read from a collection of essays on fishing featuring a who’s who of local literati, Astream: American Writers on Fly Fishing, on Thursday, August 2 at 7 p.m.
DeMott is a Steinbeck scholar at Ohio University, but has spent a great deal of time in the West as evidenced by the caliber of writers he’s amassed for this collection of essays on Montana’s favorite past time, including Greg Keeler, Jim Harrison, Tom McGuane, Kim Barnes, Pam Houston, Michael Keaton and Jim Fergus. At least three of the contributors, Butte author Jake Mosher, Athens, Ohio-based poet Kate Fox and retired attorney Walter Bennett, plan to join De Mott for the reading.
Astream features 31 essays, nearly all of which are original for this collection, which is dedicated to fly fishing legend Nick Lyons. It’s a sequel of sorts to DeMott’s collection of essays on hunters and their dogs, Afield: American Writers on Bird Dogs. DeMott ties his passion for the outdoors to a childhood convalescence from foot surgery that left him crippled for much of the seventh grade, “keeping boredom at bay by the trial-and-error process of learning to tie flies … [un]sure I’d ever walk again and thus would never be able to use the flies I was creating.”
In addition to Bennett and Fox, DeMott hopes—but can’t promise—some of the other writers will attend. The reading is free, open to the public and will take place at Elk River Books, 115 E. Callender St. in Livingston.
0 Comments