Orion Magazine Podcast

Orion editor Scott Gast speaks with author Lauren Markham about the recent surge of interest from young people in small-scale agriculture. Markham discusses her article “The New Farmers” from the November/December 2014 issue of Orion, recounts the stories of friends who’ve turned to farming, and speculates on the impact of this hopeful new movement.

Want more wildlife in your backyard? Consider raising some chickens. Author Sy Montgomery reads "Predators in the Barnyard," published in the Lay of the Land department of the November/December 2014 issue of Orion.

Assistant Editor Scott Gast speaks with Kathleen Dean Moore about her September/October 2014 article for Orion, “The Rules of the River,” which links observations from the natural world with the fight against business as usual.

Editor Jennifer Sahn talks with Terry Tempest Williams, author of “The Glorious Indifference of Wilderness” in the September/October 2014 issue’s special section on wilderness. The two discuss storytelling and the genesis of Williams’s article as well as its meaning alongside an extensive collection of writing on the topic.

2014 marks fifty years since the passage of the Wilderness Act, so it is a good time to reflect on the achievements this legislation made possible and also discuss the challenges faced by wilderness. One of these is finding ways to make wilderness more relevant in an increasingly diverse and technology-focused society. A panel of writers, thinkers, and advocates (David Sobel, Rue Mapp, Jimmy Gaudry, and Doug Scott) discussed these issues live with Orion staff.

Managing Editor Andrew Blechman speaks with author Mike Tidwell about his May/June & July/August 2014 article for Orion, “Rite of Passage.” Tidwell recounts his camping trip with his teenage son in Big Bend, during which they saw and discussed the realities of climate change.

Author Derek Sheffield reads from his Enumeration in the May/June & July/August 2014 issue about how to make your new house a home. Hint: get to know some of your wild neighbors.

Author Eva Saulitis reads her March/April essay, “Wild Darkness,” a moving reflection on nature, death, and wildness.

Author Gretchen Legler recently visited Bhutan and reported on the country’s efforts toward Gross National Happiness, an alternative means of measuring economic progress (her essay, "The Happiness Index," appears in the January/February 2014 issue of Orion). Legler was joined in a discussion of people-oriented economic development by author, filmmaker, and Right Livelihood Award winner Helena Norberg-Hodge, and by popular author and philosopher Charles Eisenstein.

Editors Jennifer Sahn and Andrew Blechman discuss the contents of the January/February 2014 issue of the magazine, including an interview with British journalist George Monbiot about the importance of rewilding; an essay by Gretchen Legler about Bhutan’s experiment with Gross National Happiness as an alternative metric of a nation’s economic progress; Craig Childs's imaginary walk across the Martian landscape; new fiction from Luis Alberto Urrea; and more.

Poets Ross Gay and Aimee Nezhukumatathil read from their poetry correspondence, "Letters from Two Gardens," tracing the shape of a year as experienced through each of their gardens.

Poetry editor Hannah Fries talks with Aimee Nezhukumatathil and Ross Gay about the experience of writing their collaborative poem series in the January/February issue, "Letters from Two Gardens"—and about how writing the poems changed the way they think about and work in their gardens.

The human relationship to nature and place is dynamic, and so is the writing that grows out of that fundamental connection. Two celebrated authors joined Orion's Editor Jennifer Sahn for a wide-ranging discussion of how the genre of nature writing is evolving.

The local food movement has grown by leaps and bounds, but needs new infrastructure to reach its true potential. In the November/December 2013 edition of Orion, award-winning food writer Rowan Jacobsen reported on one exciting solution to the challenge—food hubs (see "From Farm to Table"). He was joined by a panel of food-sector leaders for a wide ranging discussion about moving the local food movement beyond farmer's markets.

Over the past one hundred years, we humans have grown in population at a rate rarely seen outside of a petri dish. Best-selling author Alan Weisman, who was interviewed in the September/October 2013 issue ("Crowded Planet") about his new book Countdown: Our Last, Best Hope for a Future on Earth?, was joined by an expert panel to discuss human population issues and answer listener questions.