Lisa Laughlin
Writing about the West
Managing Editor | Copy Writer
M.F.A. in Creative Nonfiction
My work
Literary Essays
I write about the West. My essays have been published in various national journals. I write about dryland wheat farming, wildfires, place, loss, and more.
Out There Articles
I've written over 80 articles for Out There Outdoors magazine, an Inland Northwest outdoor recreation magazine. I have been the Managing Editor here since 2023. https://issuu.com/snyderzzz
Copy Writing
I work with DOMA Coffee Roasting Company's marketing team and artists to tell stories around coffee that end up on coffee bags, newsletters, blog posts, social media and more. https://www.domacoffee.com/
I grew up on a third-generation dryland wheat farm in central Washingston state and have an MFA in Creative Nonfiction from EWU. My chapbook of flash essays, "Kindling," was published in 2017.
Featured Articles & Essays
When I began to call Spokane home, I wondered what the river's problems were, what challenges it faced, and what we were trying to do better. This spring, I followed my curiousity.
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It had been five years since I’d hiked to the lake. It was a modest alpine lake in the northeast Cascades, tucked in the Lake Chelan-Sawtooth Wilderness, an area of public land that had accrued meaning for my family through years of trips and storytelling.
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The West I know has a speckled hawk on a telephone pole every quarter mile. It’s spotted with dust devils after plowing, flushed red when the cheatgrass is up, smeared with the haze of wildfire smoke—dependably now—every mid-summer.
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The way I interact with nature has changed a lot since becoming a parent. I became a mom right around the time the pandemic broke out, and my son was four months old when we were faced with lockdown.
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When the harvest rotation is slow—when a truck full of wheat has left the field, or the combine has dipped into a draw—I take a moment to walk the sunbaked creek beds lining our fields. It’s no small undertaking in the dry, ninety-degree heat of the place.
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It might just look like a fuzzy, red plant. But Pacific Dulse seaweed is a call to think about the food you consume, just like you think about the coffee you drink.
Read Morehttps://sweetlit.com/issue-10-1/essay-lisa-laughlin/
From the foreward:
"Laughlin's work in these essays covers ground related to loss, to the beauty and bare truth of it, and to how our sense of place accomodates that beauty and bare truth. All three of these selections reflect on the dryland wheat farm of Laughlin's youth, its austerity and dangers, and her own desire to hold it, to keep this home close, while acknowledging that impossibility. With language as stark as the land itself, and in the presence of a writer who meditates and reflects and discovers, we get an opening — a consciousness — that invites us to meditate and reflect and discover alongside, that sketches this place in the small, meaningful strokes of the short form." —K.C. Wolfe, Co-Founding Editor
More of Lisa's Writing
Literary Works
"A Science and an Art" | Flyway Journal of Writing and Environment | contest finalist | Spring 2018 https://flywayjournal.org/non-fiction/a-science-and-an-art/
"Ephrata, WA" | Orion Magazine's "Place Where You Live" Section | May 2015 https://orionmagazine.org/article/ephrata-washington/
"Kindling" | Sweet Literary Magazine | Nominated for a Pushcart Prize | Sept 2017 https://sweetlit.com/issue-10-1/essay-lisa-laughlin/
"Listen to the Silence" | Belmont Story Review | Issue No. 1 https://issuu.com/belmontstoryreview/docs/bsrtext/2?ff&experiment=previewReaderTestMode,new-bff-links-purchased,new-bff-overlay
"Body and Field" | High Desert Journal | Oct 2017 https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5eba1f61b311ac0566822d5c/t/5f98fe83a7b60175a59e363f/1603862149755/Lisa+Laughlin%2C+Body+and+Field+_+highdesertjournal.pdf
Selected Out There Outdoors Articles
"Backcountry Biking for All" | A tour of north Idaho's Hiawatha Trail | Aug/Sept 2023 https://outthereoutdoors.com/backcountry-biking-for-all/
"Proof of Life: From Brain Tumor to 50k" | Based on an interview with a trail runner | Jan/Feb 2018 https://outthereoutdoors.com/proof-of-life-from-brain-tumor-to-50k/
"Barefooting the Spokane: The Short-Lived, Spokane River Water Ski Craze" | July 2018 https://outthereoutdoors.com/barefooting-the-spokane-the-short-lived-spokane-river-water-ski-craze/
"The Benefits of Companion Gardening" | June 2021 https://outthereoutdoors.com/benefits-of-companion-gardening/
"Spokane's Trolley Trail Preserves a Piece of Local History" | July 2019 | https://outthereoutdoors.com/spokanes-trolley-trail-preserves-a-piece-of-local-history/
"Lessons from a Triple Crown Hiker" | Feb 2018 | https://outthereoutdoors.com/lessons-from-a-triple-crown-hiker/
"Hazen Audel Brings Light to Indigenous Lifestyles" | Feb 2018 | https://outthereoutdoors.com/hazen-audel-brings-light-to-indigenous-lifestyles/
Copy Writing Projects for DOMA
The Search for the Perfect Coffee: https://www.domacoffee.com/blogs/blog/the-search
Start With Coffee: Fly Fisher Guide: https://www.domacoffee.com/pages/fly-fishing-guide
Limited Oxygen Coffee Processing: https://www.domacoffee.com/blogs/blog/limited-oxygen-processing
Start With Coffee: Therapeutic Sailing: https://www.domacoffee.com/pages/dogsmile-adventures
Interview with Summer Lovin' '23 artist: https://www.domacoffee.com/blogs/blog/summer-lovin-2023
The Zion Forever Project: https://www.domacoffee.com/pages/zion-forever-project
Start With Coffee: The Texas Chef: https://www.domacoffee.com/pages/locos
Selected Editor's Letters for Out There Outdoors
"Learning the Lexicon of the Places We Love" | July/Aug 2024 https://outthereoutdoors.com/learning-the-lexicon-of-the-places-we-love/
"An Enlightening Backcountry Encounter" | May/June 2024 https://outthereoutdoors.com/an-enlightening-backcountry-encounter/
"A Case for Reading the Weather" | March/Apr 2024 https://outthereoutdoors.com/a-case-for-reading-the-weather/
"For the Love of a Place" | Sept/Oct 2023 https://outthereoutdoors.com/for-the-love-of-a-place/
"Learning on the Trail" | July/Aug 2023 https://outthereoutdoors.com/learning-on-the-trail/
"Jumping into Summer" | May/ June 2023 https://outthereoutdoors.com/jumping-in-to-summer/
"Illumination for the Long Run" | March/Apr 2023 https://outthereoutdoors.com/spokanes-trolley-trail-preserves-a-piece-of-local-history/
I enjoyed connecting with Montana artist Coila Evans for this project, one of many I've done in recent years. Here's my words on back of this can:
"This heirloom variety from Ethiopia is a washed-process coffee with red apple acidity and floral aromas, extra refreshing as an iced brew. It's clean and sweet, like the air on an open prairie as a long summer day wanes to night.
With an homage to the high plains of Montana, artist Coila Evans' lone lady longhorn is meant to evoke the enduring, independent spirit of the West. Let this coffee inspire you to explore the liminal, like where the horizon meets the sky, and strike a balance between peace and purpose."
Contact
- Spokane, Washington, United States
I'm interested in freelance writing and editing projects. Get in touch!