Author and Salt Lake Tribune reporter Zak Podmore will read from his 2019 book Confluence: Navigating the Personal & Political On Rivers of the New West from Torrey House Press and share photos from paddling trips down the Rio Grande and Little Colorado River. Zak will also discuss the legacy of uranium mining in southeast Utah, tell stories about his source-to-sea journey through a historic dam removal project on Washington's Elwha River, and recount a canoe trip he took across the Colorado River Delta in Mexico during a rare release of water.

Join Zak Podmore for a discussion at the Entrada Institute or streaming online on Thursday, September 17.

Purchase a copy of Confluence from Torrey House Press: https://www.torreyhouse.org/confluence

After losing his river-running mother to cancer, author and paddler Zak Podmore disappears into the American West’s iconic canyon country to heal. What he finds is a wilderness infused with personal stories, as well as a landscape strained by political, environmental, and cultural tensions. A trip down the Rio Grande in Big Bend National Park leads to a confrontation with US immigration policy. While canoeing down a rare release of water in the Colorado River delta, Podmore questions the economic foundations of Western water management. He reports on uranium tailings near the San Juan River, dam removals on Washington’s Elwha River, and a tourist development in the Grand Canyon. Moving and provocative, CONFLUENCE follows in the tradition of Thoreau or Edward Abbey — it takes us into the wild but always has one eye turned back toward the blessings and ills of civilization.

Zak Podmore is a Utah-based writer, film producer, and editor who covers conservation issues and Utah politics. He is a Report for America fellow at the Salt Lake Tribune, editor-at-large for Canoe & Kayak, and editor of the Canyon Echo: A Journal of Southeast Utah. He has written for Outside, Sierra, High Country News, Four Corners Free Press, High Desert Journal, and the Huffington Post. His films have been selected for the Wild & Scenic Film Festival, the Vancouver International Mountain Film Festival, and the Colorado Environmental Film Festival, and his magazine writing won a 2018 Folio Eddie Award.