The Art of the Wild Program (AOW), an annual national conference on writing with nature, wilderness and environment, is accepting applications. An award-winning writing conference, AOW convenes July 7-14, 2000, at Lake Tahoe, and is entering its eighth year of operations. "What binds our literary community," says program founder/director and UC Davis lecturer Jack Hicks, "is a shared fascination with and commitment to the natural world and an urge to catch or celebrate some part of it on the page." The subject of wide national publicity and an hour-long PBS-TV feature, AOW welcomes writers early in process or already on the publication trail, poets and nonfiction writers. The 1999 program hosted participants from more than 20 U.S. states, Australia, Japan and Canada, ranging in age from 18 to 70+, more than 100 in number. The application deadline is May 19. "Natural diversity is a key to health in any living community, and the same is true for a writing conference," Hicks adds. "We are inclusive by region, age and writing background, welcoming cowboy poets and ecofeminists, professional scientists and planners who want to find a larger audience, staff writers who also have serious aspirations for their narratives. Or those who just want to evoke nature/wilderness for their own satisfaction on the page. We give writers of all stripes the opportunity to gather at a gorgeous setting at Squaw Valley, Calif., and be instructed by nationally prominent writers in an intimate setting." The program is co-sponsored by the University of California, Davis (through the College of Letters and Science and the John Muir Institute for the Environment). For information or brochures, email aow@ucdavis.edu, call (530) 752-1658, or inquire at 176 Voorhies Hall.