Radio Interview MTPR

This link takes you to a radio interview I did a few months ago for Montana Public Radio. Thanks Cherie Newman and The Write Question for having me.

http://www.mtpr.net/program_info/2012-07-26-541

Review in The Oregonian

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View full size'Wild Delicate Seconds' by Charles Finn

WILD DELICATE SECONDS
Charles Finn
Oregon State University Press,
$16.95 paperback, 112 pages

Over the past 15 years, Charles Finn has lived in many places across the rural Northwest. In that time, he's also come face to face with some of the region's iconic wildlife. "Wild Delicate Seconds: 29 Wildlife Encounters" is a book of poetic micro-essays about his sightings. A black bear stops 30 feet from his cabin. A red fox shares a stream. A herd of bison plod past him and his truck, parting around him as if he were a stone in a river. "Because of the unexpectedness of these meetings," Finn writes, "they held a special quality for me. Always there was timelessness, a residue of the sacred, and a lingering feeling that I was witnessing something spectacular. And I was." Finn is the editor of High Desert Journal, a literary and visual arts magazine devoted to works about the interior West.

-- Katie Schneider

Short Review from Library Pirates

Library Pirates

"Plundering the stacks for rare gold"

Friday, July 6, 2012

Wild Delicate Seconds: 29 Wildlife Encounters, Black Bears to Bumble Bees by Charles Finn

Each essay is brief, so I was tempted to gobble up another and another, but I think they'd be better savored one or two at a time. Fans of Aldo Leopold will swoon - these are similar in tone, and perhaps more accessible (less scholarly) than his Sand County essays.

While not all of his 29 creature encounters are native to Wisconsin, local nature enthusiasts still will appreciate his reflective, observational style. The language is gorgeous, and Finn has a knack for simile. My only criticism may be that he's a bit heavy-handed with the religious, spiritual end of his reverie - but Finn's is an easy-going kind of "gee whiz, observing nature sure proves there must be a higher power!"