Oregon Poet Laureate Ellen Waterston announces the release of her latest book, We Could Die Doing This: Dispatches on Ageing from Oregon’s Outback, published by Source Media, Inc.
In these lyrical short takes ranging from sacred to profane, sassy to compassionate, Waterston addresses everything from green burial to sex after 70. A card-carrying member of the over-the-hill gang, high desert author Ellen Waterston engages the reader in a rollicking conversation about ageing in this collection of three years’ worth of her monthly Source Weekly columns.
Poet and memoirist Judith Barrington has this to say about We Could Die Doing This: “Most of us, whether of that ‘certain age’ or simply approaching it, need to listen to [Waterston’s] thoughts on the joyful possibilities of ‘the third act’; [Waterston] believes that ‘this phase of life is as rich, complex and dynamic as any before it.’” Caryl and Jay Casbon, authors of Side by Side, write, “You can bank on wickedly fresh language, original perspectives, and a rich mix of politics, nature, and dangerous opinions. After reading an essay, you will think about it. You will want to read it again.”
We Could Die Doing This is available at local bookstores, or online at writingranch.com, sourceweekly.com or Amazon.
About Ellen Waterston:
Ellen Waterston is the author of four poetry and five literary nonfiction titles. In 2024 she was named Oregon Poet Laureate and received the Soapstone Bread and Roses Award and Literary Arts’ Stewart H. Holbrook Award. She writes a monthly column on ageing and ageism for the Source Weekly, a Bend newsweekly, and is the author of Sharing Common Ground, an ongoing Oregon Desert Land Trust interview project conducted in southeastern Oregon. In 2015 she founded the Waterston Desert Writing Prize, now a program of the High Desert Museum and, in 2000, launched the Writing Ranch that offers retreats and workshops for established and emerging writers. Waterston serves on the guest faculty of OSU Cascades MFA Low Residency Program. Waterston resides in Bend.
