 The Mogollon people were the first ones here. Say Muggy-yawn and you've said it right. These desert- and mountain-dwellers first emerged around 200 CE, and though they disappeared by the 1500s, they left distinctly impressive cliff dwellings, burial grounds, art, and tools in their wake. Before that, this land belonged to the anonymous; animals like the elk and the rattlesnake, fish like the Gila trout, rocks like the 25-million-year-old volcanic flows towering above us.
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So there I was: wet-wading a trout stream in New Mexico, 14 students and a teacher colleague behind me, all of them likely shouting for me to come back to the cars because they were getting hungry. Well, I was hungry, too, just in a different way. It didn't take me long to realize that I was treading nearly fishless water. I had my inklings as to why, but I kept them at arm's length. Sometimes it's best to ignore reason and go with the off-chance. There's always at least one of those in fly fishing; the small and precious opportunity for a break in the doldrums, the rise of a creature you didn't expect, a wriggle of life amidst the lifeless.  Four or five years ago, I heard mutterings of this rare species of trout found only in a limited number of watersheds in Arizona and New Mexico. Further research revealed that it was a strikingly beautiful fish and bore a name that somehow seems to encapsulate the ruggedness of the American Southwest in four letters -- Gila (hee-luh). The word is a synecdoche; literally, it means "running water which is salty," but its mere utterance conjures images of mysterious arroyos, of endless rimrock country caught in perpetual sunset, and of the cryptic wriggling creatures that call such a place home.
I was recently asked to talk about writing at my alma mater, Lingle-Fort Laramie High School. Writers tend to have an aversion to public speaking and I'm no different, but this opportunity provided a reason to consider my own practice and how I got to be where I am (if I'm anywhere at all). What follows are some of the resources I shared at this presentation: my take-'em-or-leave-'em tips for how to write, some meaningful quotes about the writing process, and some resources about who to write for and what to write about.
 A few weeks ago, Emmie asked me what my favorite article that I've ever had published was. I didn't really have an answer until now.
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