Blue Ridge Bartram Trail Conservancy

History. Art. And the Great Outdoors.

george masa

Reimagining the Bartram Trail Through Photography

Photography can help us see familiar and beloved places in a fresh new way. In the spirit of Bartram, we will explore how photography can be a powerful tool to awaken humility, wonder, and delight. Together we will deepen our connection with the natural world and our photographs so that our photographs can come alive with meaning and beauty.

This dynamic one-day workshop is co-facilitated by Susan Patrice and our own Executive Director, Brent Martin. Open to photographers of all levels (camera phones are welcome), even seasoned practitioners should find value in this unique approach to the medium. Participants will be offered the opportunity to have their photographs juried into the Listening to the Land: Reimagining the Bartram Trail community exhibition in Fall 2023.

Susan Patrice is a documentary photographer and contemplative artist. Her photography and public installations focus primarily on the Appalachian landscape and its people and feature intimate images that touch deeply into questions of place, belonging, and ecological personhood. She lives in Marshall, NC, where she is the director of Makers Circle and a co-founder of the Kinship Photography Collective.

March 25th, 10 am – 4 pm, Cowee School Arts and Heritage Center, Franklin NC

Please RSVP Below as this workshop is limited to 12 participants. Attendance to this workshop is based on a Sliding Scale Donation to support Kinship Photography Collective. Donations can be made the day of the event or by visiting Kinship’s website.

SELC announces finalists for the 2023 Phil Reed Environmental Writing Award    

Brent Martin has been selected as a finalist for his book “George Masa’s Wild Vision: A Japanese Immigrant Imagines Western North Carolina“

Executive Director of the Blue Ridge Bartram Trail Conservancy, Brent Martin, has once again been selected, from a pool of talented authors, for his George Masa story that was published earlier this year.

Just a mere 2 weeks after the announcement of receiving the Thomas Wolf Memorial Literary Award, the Southern Environmental Law Center published the following press release on their website.

Brent Martin, Author and Executive Director of the Blue Ridge Bartram Trail Conservancy
Brent Martin, Author and Executive Director of the Blue Ridge Bartram Trail Conservancy

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va.—The Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC) announced the finalists for the 2023 Phillip D. Reed Environmental Writing Award today. The work of this year’s finalists explores a wide array of environmental topics; ranging from environmental injustices faced by Southern communities to the challenges our region faces as it deals with the realities of climate change to the importance of environmental conservation. 

Presented each year, the Reed Award celebrates writers who achieve both literary excellence and offer extraordinary insight into the South’s natural treasures and environmental challenges.  

The award recognizes writers in two categories: the Book Category for works of nonfiction (not self-published) and the Journalism Category for newspaper, magazine, and online writing published by a recognized institution such as a news organization, university, or nonprofit group. Winners of the award will be announced in early February 2023. 

Book category finalists:  

  • Corban Addison, Wastelands: The True Story of Farm Country on Trial 
  • Dan Chapman, A Road Running Southward 
  • Brent Martin, George Masa’s Wild Vision: A Japanese Immigrant Imagines Western North Carolina 
  • Annie Proulx, Fen, Bog & Swamp 
  • Bland Simpson, North Carolina: Land of Water, Land of Sky    

Journalism category finalists: 

  • Isabelle Chapman, CNN, “Gambling ‘America’s Amazon’” 
  • Cameron Oglesby, Southerly & Scalawag (collection), “This plan is a lie. How biogas could do more harm than good for the hog industry” and “N.C. releases general biogas permit despite environmental justice concerns”
  • Tom Perkins, The Guardian (collection), “Cancer Fears Plague Residents of U.S. Region Polluted by ‘Forever Chemicals” and “Fury over ‘forever chemicals’ as US states spread toxic sewage sludge” 
  • Annie Proulx, The New Yorker, “Swamps Can Protect Against Climate Change, If We Only Let Them” 
  • Krishna Sharma, The Bitter Southerner, “Catfish & the Quarry: A Grassroots Victory for Environmental Justice in Rural GA” 

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The Southern Environmental Law Center is one of the nation’s most powerful defenders of the environment, rooted in the South. With a long track record, SELC takes on the toughest environmental challenges in court, in government, and in our communities to protect our region’s air, water, climate, wildlife, lands, and people. Nonprofit and nonpartisan, the organization has a staff of 200, including more than 100 attorneys, and is headquartered in Charlottesville, Va., with offices in Asheville, Atlanta, Birmingham, Chapel Hill, Charleston, Nashville, Richmond, and Washington, D.C. southernenvironment.org

Reed Environmental Writing Award 

SELC annually presents the Reed Environmental Writing Award for outstanding writing in memory of Phillip D. Reed, a founding trustee of SELC who helped guide our organization through the early years before his untimely death in 1993. A talented attorney committed environmental activist, and editor of the widely read Environmental Law Reporter, Phil was known for his ebullient spirit and inquiring intellect. 

By recognizing top writing about the environment, SELC hopes to raise public awareness of the South’s natural treasures and environmental challenges that foster better conservation and protection of our environment. 

We’re very excited for Brent on another well deserved recognition. “George Masa’s Wild Vision” can be purchased on the Alarka Expeditions website, Amazon, or from a handful of bookstores located in Western North Carolina.

If you’re interested in learning more about this award, please contact:

Alexis Bishop

Marketing Associate

Phone: 434-977-4090
Email: abishop@selcva.org

2022 Thomas Wolfe Memorial Literary Award Winner – Brent Martin

We’re very proud to share that Brent Martin’s book, “George Masa’s Wild Vision,” which was published earlier this year, has been selected for the 2022 Thomas Wolfe Memorial Literary Award. Continue reading the press release below:

George Masa's Wild Vision Book Cover
George Masa’s Wild Vision Book Cover

The Western North Carolina Historical Association selects Brent Martin’s “George Masa’s Wild Vision” as winner of 2022 Thomas Wolfe Memorial Literary Award

The Western North Carolina Historical has selected author Brent Martin’s George Masa’s Wild Vision: A Japanese Immigrant Imagines Western North Carolina for the 2022 Thomas Wolfe Memorial Literary Award. Originated by the Louis Lipinsky family, the Award has been presented annually by the Western North Carolina Historical Association since 1955 for printed works that focus special attention on Western North Carolina. In order to more broadly support the writers of Western North Carolina, a December 13, 2022 award ceremony will celebrate all five finalists.

Of the work, literary award committee chair Catherine Frank said, “In George Masa’s Wild Vision: A Japanese Immigrant Imagines Western North Carolina Brent Martin brings together Masa’s arresting images and his own reflections on walking in Masa’s footsteps to tell one of our region’s important stories in an innovative way. Masa played a pivotal role in the creation of the Great Smoky Mountain National Park and the Appalachian Trail through photographs that allowed viewers to experience places they would never visit. Martin creates a portrait of a man and a region we now know a little better.”

A prize of $2,500.00 accompanies the Thomas Wolfe Memorial Literary Award and will be presented to Brent Martin on Tuesday, December 13 at 5:00pm during an in-person event at UNC-Asheville’s Reuter Center that will include readings by the finalists. The event will also be live-streamed via Zoom for those who cannot attend in person. Registration is available for this free event at: www.wnchistory.org. Light refreshments will be served.

The WNC Historical Association presented the first Thomas Wolfe Memorial Literary Award to Wilma Dykeman in 1955 for The French Broad. Last year’s winner was Annette Saunooke Clapsaddle for her novel, Even As We Breathe. Other authors who have received the award include Charles Frazier, Robert Morgan, John Parris, Gail Godwin, John Ehle, Robert Brunk, Michael McFee, Lee Smith, Ron Rash, Wiley Cash, Wayne Caldwell, Fiona Ritchie, and Doug Orr.  

The Award Panel this year consists of: Catherine Frank, Chair, Director, Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at UNC Asheville; James Bradley, Secretary of Education for the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians; Wayne Caldwell, author and former Thomas Wolfe Memorial Literary Award winner; Dee James, professor emeritus, UNC-Asheville; Leslee Johnson, English department, UNC-Asheville; Jasmin Morrell, writer and co-editor of The Porch magazine; Tom Muir, Historic Site Manager, Thomas Wolfe Memorial;  Terry Roberts, Director, National Paideia Center and former Thomas Wolfe Literary Award winner; Jim Stokely, President, Wilma Dykeman Legacy.

This year’s finalists were chosen from an original group of over 50 nominations. The finalists, listed below in alphabetical order, encompass a broad range of genres and forms.

2022 Thomas Wolf Memorial Literary Award Finalists

Anne Chesky Smith, Murder at Asheville’s Battery Park Hotel: The Search for Helen Clevenger’s Killer

Lance Greene, Their Determination to Remain; A Cherokee Community’s Resistance to the Trail of Tears

Brent Martin, George Masa’s Wild Vision: A Japanese Immigrant Imagines Western North Carolina

Heather Newton, McMullen Circle

John Ross, Through the Mountains: The French Broad River and Time

The Western North Carolina Historical Association is a nonprofit with a mission of promoting and preserving regional history.  For more information, please call WNCHA at 828.253.9231 or visit www.wnchistory.org.  

George Masa's view of Charlies Bunion from Mt Kephart in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park
George Masa’s view of Charlies Bunion from Mt Kephart in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park

Folks are welcomed to purchase tickets for the finalist celebration event here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/thomas-wolfe-memorial-literary-award-celebration-tickets-469297329947

You can find the book “George Masa’s Wild Vision” in bookstores around Western North Carolina including Malaprops Bookstore in Asheville, City Light’s Bookstore in Sylva, Novel Escape in Franklin, and at the Alarka Expeditions/Blue Ridge Bartram Trail Conservancy office at the Cowee School. You can also purchase Brent’s book on the Alarka Expeditions website.

Brent Martin is the author of three chap- book collections of poetry and of The Changing Blue Ridge Mountains: Essays on Journeys Past and Present. His poetry and essays have been published in the North Carolina Literary Review, Pisgah Review, Tar River Poetry, Chattahoochee Review, Eno Journal, New Southerner, Kudzu Literary Journal, Smoky Mountain News and elsewhere. He lives in the Cowee community in Western North Carolina, where he and his wife, Angela Faye Martin, run Alarka Institute.

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