Keynote Speaker
Photo credit: Tom Furtwangler
Lyanda Lynn Haupt
Lyanda Lynn Haupt will be the keynote speaker at our March, 2025 festival. She is an award-winning author, naturalist, ecophilosopher, and speaker whose work explores the beautiful, complicated connections between humans and the wild, natural world. Lyanda’s writing is acclaimed for combining scientific knowledge with literary, poetic prose. Her books include: Mozart’s Starling The Urban Bestiary: Encountering the Everyday Wild, Crow Planet: Essential Wisdom from the Urban Wilderness, Pilgrim on the Great Bird Continent: The Importance of Everything and Other Lessons from Darwin’s Lost Notebooks, and  Rare Encounters with Ordinary Birds. She is a winner of the Sigurd Olson Nature Writing Award, the Nautilus Book Award, a finalist for the Orion Book Award, and a two-time winner of the Washington State Book Award. Lyanda’s newest book is Rooted: Life at the Crossroads of Science, Nature, and Spirit (Little, Brown Spark 2021).
Lyanda has created and directed educational programs for Seattle Audubon, worked in raptor rehabilitation in Vermont, and as a seabird researcher for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in the remote tropical Pacific. Her essays have appeared in a variety of publications, including Orion, Discover, Utne, LA Times, Times Literary Supplement, Image, Huffington Post, Wild Earth, and Conservation Biology Journal. She lives the mossy green woodlands of Bellingham, Washington.
Follow Lyanda on Instagram and subscribe to her newsletter, Wander.
Featured Artist
Forrest Chel, Pyrography Artist
Based in Birch Bay, Washington, Forrest Chel designs each woodburned scene with whimsy and intention, drawing inspiration from details and patterns found in nature. Each piece is an original drawing, transfered or drawn on wood, and hand burned, with a preference for local wood canvas.
Birds and their habits is of particular interest to Forrest Chel. Birds are featured in the art, carrying out tasks and caring for their young in natural habitats. Forrest Chel’s designs seek to share reverence of birds and their important lives, and ask the question: what sacred secrets do they know that we can not yet see?