NONFICTION
CONFLUENCE: Navigating the Personal & Political on Rivers of the New West
by ZAK PODMORE
"Podmore's essays resemble Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau with an extra dose of social, racial and political analysis."
—ARIZONA DAILY SUN
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.
October 2019 | Nonfiction | 978-1-948814-08-9 | 154 pp | $18.95
“Zak Podmore has written a book of promise: a promise that beauty matters; a promise that history lives through us; a promise that the Colorado River teaches us about life and death and the depth of both.”
—TERRY TEMPEST WILLIAMS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ZAK PODMORE is an award-winning author and journalist who has spent more than a decade writing about water and conservation issues in the western United States. He is the author of Life After Dead Pool: Lake Powell's Last Days and the Rebirth of the Colorado River and Confluence: Navigating the Personal & Political on Rivers of the New West. His work has appeared in Outside, USA Today, National Geographic Traveler, and elsewhere. He lives in Bluff, Utah.
ALSO BY THE AUTHOR
LIFE AFTER DEAD POOL: Lake Powell's Last Days and the Rebirth of the Colorado River
Award-winning journalist Zak Podmore brings to life the magnificent terrain and complex politics of the Colorado River, its dying reservoirs—and the surprising revelation that the inevitable loss of Lake Powell could be a turning point for more a sustainable future.
After decades of drought, the American West is stretched to the breaking point. A changing climate and design flaws in the Glen Canyon Dam have pushed the once-massive Lake Powell reservoir to the brink of collapse—putting at risk millions of people who depend on the Colorado River for water, agriculture, and electricity. Now, as Glen Canyon reemerges, its surprising ecological rebirth reminds us that nature’s capacity to heal may well outpace our own imaginations.
Environmental journalist Zak Podmore explores the complex challenges ahead and reframes the inevitable loss of Lake Powell as a turning point for a more sustainable future. Through an arresting mix of science and storytelling, Life After Dead Pool debunks the notion that the West’s water challenges are unsolvable and invites us to secure a future where the Colorado River once again runs free.
PRAISE FOR CONFLUENCE
"Deeply researched and deeply personal . . . Podmore’s grief and his love of the landscape run through the book, lyrical and raw.”
—PACIFIC STANDARD
"Podmore’s writing is as personal as it is hard-hitting, leaving an impact with its thoughtfulness and depth of reporting.”
—CANOE & KAYAK
“These essays combine an adventurer’s soul with a philosopher’s head. Kudos to Zak Podmore, a fresh new voice from the West.”
—PHILIP CONNORS, author of A Song for the River
"The publication of Confluence marks the arrival of an important new voice in the West.”
—DAVID GESSNER, author of All the Wild that Remains
“Zak Podmore has unleashed the kind of storytelling that will inspire the next great wave of ecological activism—and not a moment too soon.”
—AMY IRVINE, author of Desert Cabal
“Confluence is a profoundly personal and philosophical look at Western rivers and their value to all souls.”
—ANDY NETTELL, Back of Beyond Books
"An introspective journey that strikes an exquisite, subtle balance between empirical realities and vigorous philosophical questioning."
—THE UTAH REVIEW
