Edge Effects

To get to PLAYA, I drove through eleven ecoregions, tracking over 2,000 miles from Minnesota. I was doing ecology fieldwork in the tallgrass prairie before leaving early in the morning in mid-September. I drove across North Dakota, through Montana, up to the Idaho...

Two-time PLAYA resident Scott T. Starbuck liked to start his days in residency fishing and "pausing to write on logs or boulders along rivers and creeks." In this way, during a 2015 PLAYA stay, he completed one of his books of wonderful, watery poems, Lost Salmon...

I arrived at PLAYA on a frigid January afternoon after a 10-hour drive, turned through the welcoming gates, and brought the car to a sliding stop on the snow-covered road in front of the main house. A recent ice storm had covered the bare branches of every tree and...

David Werfelmann is an award-winning American composer of instrumental, vocal, and electronic music whose works are widely performed and recorded by ensembles and soloists throughout the United States. His orchestral music has been performed by the Milwaukee Symphony...

Sue and I have lived part time in Harney County, in the southeast corner of the state, for about 20 years. In 2014 we were invited to be part of the cohort of twelve residents for PLAYA’s first thematic residency, entitled “Change Dynamics in the Northern Great...

When fiction writer and teacher Allison Landa heard that PLAYA had begun posting on the Edge Effects blog, she emailed us immediately. She'd loved her time at PLAYA in 2013, for many of the reasons other residents have blogged about and some they have not (yet). She's...

Evan Frost is a conservation biologist, ecologist, and botanist with over twenty-five years of experience working at the interface of science, land management, and conservation in the western United States. He is currently focused on wildlife/biodiversity connectivity...

Sonora Jha is an author and professor with a fascinating background. She was born in India, where she worked as a journalist in Mumbai and Bangalore before moving to Singapore and then the United States to earn a Ph.D. in Political Communication. She is now a...

Suze Woolf, visual artist, and Dr. Diana Six, entomologist and writer, had been collaborating for some time before meeting face to face. PLAYA provided the time and space for them to get together, work in residency, and get to field locations in the nearby forests and...

As PLAYA’s Residency Manager Chelsea Peil puts it so well, "The Brazilians stole our hearts." From the moment they arrived with brilliant smiles, through the turning of compost in the garden and planting of potatoes, to the way they shared so much of themselves,...