Sunday, June 21, 2009

Wild & Free Montana Q&A

"The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes." (Marcel Proust)

.What is Wild & Free Montana?

Wild & Free is a steaming bowl of Natural History Stew on a cold winter's day. The ingredients are Montana's wild plants, animals and lands -- with a little personality thrown in for local flavor.

My aim is to create a natural history magazine that is both informative and interesting. My targets are the wild things around us that you might not hear about some place else.

A new issue of Wild & Free is published about once a month. You can sign up to automatically receive each new issue as an email. Posted issues also land here eventually. This makes it easier to archive and cross-reference the various subjects.

Who writes this stuff?

Photo of John and Abbey by Tracy SchiessJohn Ashley, at your service. I moved to Montana in 1987 to study biology (with a natural history emphasis) at the University of Montana, in Missoula. I fell in love with the wild places, and I hope to spend the rest of my days here. I've worked as a staff photographer for the Missoulian newspaper, and as a seasonal biologist in Glacier National Park. Wild & Free is my attempt to combine journalism and natural history to promote the conservation of wild things and wild places.

Why do you spend hundreds of hours doing this?

I like to think of Wild & Free as community service for a rather large community. (I am, however, motivated to sell photographs from our main website, http://www.johnashleyfineart.com/.)

Can I use your words for my book report / blog / magazine?

Do they still write book reports? Feel free to lift a few sentences here or there, in the name of conservation, but don't copy entire sections. Because, (1) it's copyrighted and, (2) it's bad juju. Do your research and then express yourself in your own, unique way.

Can I suggest a topic that I'd like to know more about?

Please do, as long as it relates to wild Montana.