In this episode of The Heart Path Podcast, we learn about Professor and Photographer, Donald S. Clark, and his adventure in photographing places across the US that have inspired historic and contemporary nature writers John Muir, Rachel Carson, Phillip Connors, Terry Tempest Williams, Barry Lopez, Pam Houston and more. 

After fifteen years of planning and several years of photography, camping, and collaboration, Clark created the book, "Nature's Writers: Mentored by the Land," which celebrates forty-four nature writers and the landscapes they've preserved through their words and their books.  

Bio: Donald S. Clark is a Professor of Art/Photography at Minnesota State University Moorhead. He has been teaching photography for 29 years and making images for more than 39 years. The majority of his work focuses on environmental and landscape issues. He is also interested in the relationships of people in their environment and how these relationships affect culture. He has exhibited his work throughout the United States and internationally. He currently lives in Lake Park, Minnesota. 

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When a pipeline project threatened residents of rural Massachusetts, Dr. Lis McLoughlin partnered with a local land trust and fought to protect her community. She not only succeeded in this endeavor, she established NatureCulture® and the Writing the Land® Project in collaboration with poets in an effort to financially support land trusts and protect lands across the US. 

Bio: Dr. Lis McLoughlin is the founder and director of NatureCulture®, a publishing company through which she directs the Writing the Land® Project which pairs poets with conserved lands, and creates anthologies sold for land conservation. Lis has degrees in Civil Engineering, Education, and Science and Technology Studies. She lives off-grid in Northfield, Massachusetts and part-time in Montréal, Québec. 

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In this episode, we follow Navajo roads to academia, switch paths from engineering to writing, and change the cadence of running to the peddle of mountain biking, as we process grief through words and story mapping. 

Byron F. Aspaas is Diné. He is Táchii’nii, born for Tódich’iinii, and raised within the four sacred mountains of Dinétah, Byron received his BFA and MFA from the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) in creative writing. His writing reflects upon the eradication of Navajoland, which draws readers into discourse about preservation with Diné culture and land. His writing can be found in Weber: The Contemporary West, Denver Quarterly, International Writing Program Collections, The Rumpus, Santa Fe Noir, Shapes of Native Nonfiction and The Diné Reader. Byron will begin as lecturer with Colorado State University – Pueblo (Fall ‘25) and will continue as poetry mentor for Western Colorado University’s Graduate Program in Creative Writing. He lives with his partner, six dogs, and four cats in Colorado Springs, Colorado. 

You can follow Byron at https://www.byronaspaas.com/ and read his Letter to America at https://www.terrain.org/2024/poetry/letter-to-america-aspaas/.

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What happens when we take action toward a better future? We could end up sending ripples of "buoyant hope" and "positive interference" into the world. In this episode of The Heart Path Podcast, we talk with Eco Poet, Biologist, and Nature Writing Facilitator, Erin Robertson, about land partnerships, climate change, fire, and the resiliency of humanity when faced with the unknown. 

Erin Robertson is the author of What the River May Bring:  Impressions of Interior Alaska and the forthcoming Singed Seeds:  A Marshall Fire Year.  In 2017, Erin founded BoCo Wild Writers, her outdoor nature writing class offerings. Her poetry has been published in the North American Review, Cold Mountain Review, Poet Lore, Deep Wild, and elsewhere, and has been performed by Ars Nova Singers and The Crossing choir. She is the current Writer-in-Residence for Friends of Coal Creek, and past honors include being a guest artist hosted by the U.S. Consulate in Kazakhstan, Voices of the Wilderness Artist in Residence at Koyukuk National Wildlife Refuge in Galena, Alaska, Boulder County Artist in Residence at Caribou Ranch, and awards in the Front Range Book Prize, Michael Adams Poetry Prize, and Columbine Poets Members' Contest. Erin earned her Master of Science in Museum and Field Studies from the University of Colorado studying botany and environmental interpretation, and worked as a conservation biologist advocating for endangered species in the Rocky Mountain West for nine years. Her remarkable husband, two sons, parakeet, and pup teach her about wonder every day. Website: erinrobertson.org, wildwriters.org.  Instagram, Facebook:  @bocowildwriters

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In this episode, we explore imagery rooted in memory with Frontexto artist, poet, publisher, and instructor, Octavio Quintanilla. 

Octavio Quintanilla is the 2025 Texas Poet Laureate and the author of the poetry collections, If I Go Missing (Slough Press, 2014), The Book of Wounded Sparrows (Texas Review Press, 2024), which was longlisted for the National Book Award, and Las Horas Imposibles / The Impossible Hours, winner of the 2024 Ambroggio Prize of the Academy of American Poets (University of Arizona Press, 2025).  

Octavio is the founder and director of the literature & arts festival, VersoFrontera, publisher of Alabrava Press, and former Poet Laureate of San Antonio, TX. His Frontextos (visual poems) have been published and exhibited widely. He teaches Literature and Creative Writing at Our Lady of the Lake University and was recently inducted into the Texas Institute of Letters. 

Website: https://www.octavioquintanilla.com/

IG: @writeroctavioquintanilla  Twitter: @OctQuintanilla  

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In this episode of The Heart Path Podcast, we expand our minds, hearts, and rekindle creative spark with Poet and Author of Moonscape for a Child, Allie Rigby.  

Allie Rigby is a poet with roots in the chaparral of Southern California. Moonscape for a Child is her debut poetry collection (Bored Wolves, 2024). Writing honors include a Fulbright Fellowship, a William Dickey Fellowship, and contribution to the annual Bread Loaf Writing Conference. Her poems and essays appear on Living on Earth Radio, WFIU’s The Poet’s Weave, Equatorial Literary Magazine, Parentheses Journal, and more. She has a master’s degree in English: Creative Writing from San Francisco State University. She has taught at Ovidius University, Loft Literary Center, Point Reyes National Seashore Association, and for events with the US-Romanian Embassy. She is an editor for The SEEfest Review and the curator behind Living Poetry. You can find more of her work at www.allierigby.com. She's on IG @allie.j.rigby.

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In this episode, we shed layers of self and society to embrace joy and wholeness in nature with author and wilderness guide, Larry Glover. 

Larry Glover is the author of Wild Joy: Ecospiritual Encounters with Nature as Teacher, Healer, and Lover; winner of two Gold Medals in the 2025 Global Book Awards. He aspires to discover what being human truly is, particularly in a paradoxical world woven of mystery and consciousness and fire and water and air and earth and spirit and soul too. He struggled from an early age with a madness that would destroy himself, which he came to recognize as a cultural story of separation and unworthiness for life. Larry now leans into our shared love of nature to inspire and deepen what it is to truly love the self, through his writing, speaking, coaching, workshops and wilderness retreats held in conjunction with the Cheryl Slover-Linett and the non-profit leadfeather.org. He is author of Wild Joy, Ecospiritual Encounters with Nature as Teacher, Healer, and Lover. 

Discover more of Larry’s writing and how to engage with him at larryglover.com and download a free gift: Healing the Jehovah Wound: A Path to Wholeness and Wild Joy.

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In this episode, we cartwheel through life with Poet, Starr Paul, while we celebrate the one-year anniversary of her organization, Black Hills Writers Collective, and listen to her newest poems inspired by her pregnancy with Baby V. 

Starr Paul is a Black Hills based poet from Spearfish, South Dakota. Starr serves as the Founder and Co-director of The Black Hills Writers Collective, Host of the Arise Online Open Mic Series, and Board Member of the South Dakota State Poetry Society. She holds her M.F.A in Poetry from Western Colorado University. Her work can be found in the Santa Fe Literary Review, Literary Matters, The Last Stanza Poetry Journal, and the Three Peaks Review Literary Magazine.  

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In this episode, we follow Derek Sheffield's travels through poetry, editing, and publishing and celebrate our connection with all living beings--both human and non-human. 

Guest bio: Derek Sheffield is the 8th poet laureate of Washington State (2025-2027). His books include Cascadia Field Guide: Art, Ecology, Poetry, winner of a 2024 Pacific Northwest Booksellers Award, Not for Luck, selected by Mark Doty for the Wheelbarrow Books Poetry Prize, Through the Second Skin, runner-up for the Emily Dickinson First Book Award, and Dear America: Letters of Hope, Habitat, Defiance, and Democracy. A two-time finalist for the Washington State Book Award, his other awards include the Foreword Reviews Indies Book of the Year in Nature Writing and the James Hearst Poetry Prize judged by Li-Young Lee.  He teaches at Wenatchee Valley College and Western Colorado University, edits poetry for Terrain.org, and can often be found in the woods along the eastern slopes of the Cascade Range near Leavenworth, Washington. 

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In this episode, we celebrate Cheryl Slover-Linett's first published poetry collection, The Seduction of the Daughter in Fifteen Pieces, while we follow the muse, trust in the path, allow for vulnerability, value the healing process of writing, and learn more about Cheryl's wilderness retreat business, Lead Feather. 

If you are interested in joining Cheryl for one of her upcoming online readings, here are the links: 

Sunday, February 15th, 9am PT, 12pm ET, https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88224296577?pwd=7tp2w4hNqK72pa7H5fbXYQcZ1bxoBE.1

Wednesday, February 18th, 5pm PT, 8pm ET, https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85316882585?pwd=TIAiH86raoywMPjaaAQWakKls7rb7y.1

Poet Bio: Cheryl Slover-Linett (she/her) is a poet based in Santa Fe, NM. She is the author of The Seduction of the Daughter in Fifteen Pieces (dancing girl press 2025). Her poetry has been featured in Amethyst Review, Eunoia Review, River Mouth Review, Sky Island Journal, Foothill Poetry Journal and Hole In The Head Review, among others, and she has served on the editorial teams at Terrain.org and High Desert Journal. She received her MFA from Western Colorado University and also holds degrees from UCLA and Yale University. In addition to writing, she leads wilderness retreats through Lead Feather, the nature non-profit she founded in 2008, and spends as much time as she can on the rivers and in the mountains of northern New Mexico. Learn more about Cheryl’s work at leadfeather.org. 

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