Panels galore, a trip to sunny Tucson, and a feature story that keeps on giving: Here’s what we’ve been up to over the past month.
In late January, the normally dispersed editorial squad gathered in Tucson, Arizona, for our biannual editorial retreat — but not a full surrender. In between conflict-resolution training — not that journalists ever butt heads — and a feature-writing workshop, some staff found time for a saguaro-filled hike up nearby Tumamoc Hill.
Earlier, the Indigenous Affairs Desk’s Associate Editor Tristan Ahtone, Assistant Editor Anna V. Smith and Editorial Fellow Kalen Goodluck paneled a speaker series by the University of Arizona’s Indigenous Peoples Law and Policy Program. Editor-in-Chief Brian Calvert joined Contributing Editor Ruxandra Guidi for two talks, one to an audience of readers and another to a roomful of University of Arizona students.
Shortly after Tucson, Brian also hosted a panel discussion at Los Angeles’ Autry Museum of the American West, which is hosting a High Country News exhibit in celebration of our 50th anniversary. Contributing Editor Graham Lee Brewer and LA Times writer Gustavo Arellano joined Brian in discussing myths of the West and the region’s complicated past and present. Some 80 people attended. So many panels!
Meanwhile, Contributing Editor Elena Saavedra Buckley recently appeared on the popular true crime podcast Criminal, where she discussed her feature story on a funeral home’s body-brokering scheme (“None of this happened the way you think it did,” 6/10/19). And back in western Colorado, development staff Hannah Stevens and Laurie Milford met HCN supporters Jean Dewart, Kelly Gwendolyn Gallagher and some New Mexico friends on a trail in the Holy Cross Wilderness.
Finally, a correction: “One woman took a stand against tribal disenrollment and paid for it” (February 2020) mischaracterized the familial relationship between Carmen Tageant and LeAndra Smith. It has been corrected online. We regret the error.
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Dear Friends.
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