Robert Heilman on the 20th Anniversary Edition of Overstory: Zero, Real Life in Timber Country

Host Gene Bradley speaks with Robert Leo Heilman the 20th anniversary edition of his award-winning literary nonfiction collection, Overstory: Zero, Real Life in Timber Country. The book is set in Myrtle Creek, Oregon where Heilman lives, and deals with small town life in Southern Oregon: work, family, community and the land.  He portrays the working class life of loggers, miners, roofers, millworkers and tree planters in rural Oregon. Drawing on his experiences from a lifetime of manual labor, Heilman provides increasingly rare insight into the lives of the marginalized people he lives among and the land that sustains them.   

Originally published by Sasquatch Books of Seattle in 1995, the first edition of Overstory, Zero was a runner-up for the Oregon Book Award in 1996 and won the 1996 Andres Berger Award when it was picked as the best nonfiction book for Alaska, BC, Washington, Idaho and Oregon. This new edition contains ten new pieces.

Robert Heilman was a Vietnam War draft resister and high school dropout in 1970. He has been a resident of Myrtle Creek, Oregon since 1975. His union membership includes IUPAT Local 831 retired and the National Writers Union (UAW Local 1981). He has been a journalism and periodicals contract adviser. a radio news stringer for KLCC, Eugene, and a writer/producer for the Bioregional Report, KSOR Ashland.