About Camas

"Camas is a testimonial to the raw, on-the-ground power that continues to rise out of Montana. Not only is there the fine tradition of western writing rooted in this part of the country, but it is growing, stretching, taking more risks, and bearing a greater diversity of voices. I find the words of these students and other writers deeply inspiring. They carry our imagination forward in both idealism and longing, what all readers yearn to find."

— Terry Tempest Williams

Our Vision: Across the landscape of its pages, Camas cultivates new ideas and perspectives while remaining rooted in the inherited traditions of art and literature of the American West.

Founded by Environmental Studies graduate students at the University of Montana in 1992, Camas is a biannual environmental literary magazine that continues to be  produced by students in the Environmental Studies program. Our goals are to encourage a dialogue on environmental and cultural issues in the West; celebrate the people who work, study, write, and live here; and provide an opportunity for students and emerging writers to publish their work alongside established environmental authors.

Camas publishes the work of the West's emerging writers and continues to publish the work of well-known authors such as Edwin Dobb, Rick Bass, David James Duncan, John Elder, Derrick Jensen, William Kittredge, Bill McKibben, Ellen Meloy, Janisse Ray, Annick Smith and Kim Todd.

Camas has been featured in High Country News in June 2008, in the Street Librarian column in the Dec 2004 Utne Reader by Chris Dodge, and in the UM Vision Magazine Winter 2004 Backtalk column by Kate Cywinski.

We welcome contributions and submissions of essays, poems, fiction, art and photography.

We receive support from the Associated Students of the University of Montana, the Environmental Studies Program at the University of Montana, and many generous individuals and businesses. Thanks especially to all those who have recently purchased or subscribed to our journal. — please let us know what you think by dropping us a line.

UPCOMING ISSUES: Camas is published bi-annually in Winter and Summer installments.  Each issue emerges from a distinct theme which is meant to be a starting point for conversation and inspiration--not an impediment.  We will review all submissions, so please send us your thoughtful, evocative, and inspired work, no matter how tenuously related to future issues' themes. 

Winter 2012: Work  Submission deadline: October 15, 2012.  Available December 2012.