Immerse yourself in the ideas long inspired by the beauty of the Mojave and Colorado Deserts with prose and poetry workshops, readings, and writer panels. This family-friendly event features literature experiences for park lovers ages 10 and older.

• This special writing event takes place at the famous High Desert Test Sites campus.
• Anyone may attend! No writing experience or expertise is required.
• No park pass is required. 
• No meals or equipment are provided.
• Please bring a notebook and paper for the writing prompt.

Navigating the venue is leisurely with less than 2 miles of walking with shade, seating, consistent terrain, and little to no elevation gain. It is not ADA accessible.

Featured Writers

• Obi Kaufmann
• Josh Jackson
• Chris Clarke
• Ruth Nolan
• Thomas Crochetiere
• Patrick Zuchowicki (moderator)

Obi Kaufmann is an American naturalist, writer, and illustrator known for his watercolor-rich explorations of California’s ecology and geography. Born in Hollywood in 1973 and raised in Danville, he studied at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he shifted from biology to visual arts. Kaufmann has lived in Oakland since the early 2000s and has contributed wildlife artwork to numerous publications, worked as an arts writer for the East Bay Express, and practiced as a tattoo artist.

In 2017, Heyday Books published his first book, The California Field Atlas, a regional bestseller that won multiple California book awards and featured hundreds of his watercolor paintings. He followed it with The State of Water: Understanding California’s Most Precious Resource (2019), and continued his literary and artistic examination of the state through works including The Forests of California, The Coasts of California, and The Deserts of California. A committed conservationist, Kaufmann frequently speaks across California on ecology and the preservation of the natural world.

Josh Jackson is a writer and photographer whose work illuminates America’s most overlooked public lands — those managed by the Bureau of Land Management. He weaves storytelling and imagery to reveal the beauty, complexity, and vulnerability of these often-misunderstood landscapes. His work has appeared in High Country News, the Los Angeles Times, Adventure Journal, Modern Huntsman, and Backcountry Journal, among others. His first book, “The Enduring Wild: A Journey into California’s Public Lands” (Heyday, 2025), is both a love letter to these landscapes and a meditation on belonging and reciprocity. As founder of the Forgotten Lands Project, Josh extends this work beyond the page — through keynote addresses on public lands and by guiding camping trips with the USAL Project that connect people directly to these fragile and inspiring places. He lives with his wife and three children in the heart of Los Angeles.

Ruth Nolan is a writer, poet, editor, and scholar of California desert literature. A native of the Mojave Desert, she is a former wildland firefighter for the BLM-California Desert District and the U.S. Forest Service. Nolan is Associate Professor of English, Creative Writing, and Native American Literature at College of the Desert in the Coachella Valley.

She is the author of Ruby Mountain (Finishing Line Press), editor of No Place for a Puritan: The Literature of California’s Deserts (Heyday Books), and co-editor of Fire and Rain: Ecopoetry of California (Scarlet Tanager, 2018), which was an Eric Hoffer Independent Publishing finalist. Her short story “Palimpsest” appeared in LA Fiction: Southland Writing (Red Hen Press) and received an Honorable Mention in Sequestrum Magazine’s 2016 Editor’s Reprint contest.

Nolan’s writing has been featured in publications including KCET, Los Angeles Times, Desert Oracle, and Sierra Club Desert Report. Her poetry has appeared in literary journals and in the Joshua Tree National Park-based short film Escape to Reality: 24 hrs @ 24 fps. She has received support from Bread Loaf, Vermont Studio, Squaw Valley, Joshua Tree National Park, and California Writers Residency programs.

She co-founded the Inlandia Institute Writing Workshop Program, serves on the advisory board for Poets & Writers West, and lectures widely on desert literature, ecology, and California Indian culture. Nolan holds an M.F.A. in Creative Writing and Writing for the Performing Arts from the University of California, Riverside.

Register Here