EMPTY BOWL
Empty Bowl, an independent press founded in 1976 in the Pacific Northwest as a cooperative letterpress publisher, publishes literary anthologies, poetry, translations, essays, and occasionally fiction.
In January 2025, we were pleased to publish Waveshock: Ed Ricketts, the Voyage of the Grampus, and Our Biopoetic Future by Jerry Martien. Waveshock was inspired by Ed Ricketts: From Cannery Row to Sitka, Alaska, a collection of essays edited by whale biologist Jan Straley. Empty Bowl is pleased to announce that Strayley’s book is now available on our website.
In 1932, marine ecologist Ed Ricketts, with friends Jack and Sasha Calvin and mythologist Joseph Campbell, departed Puget Sound on board the *Grampus* for a journey up the Pacific Coast to Southeast Alaska. Ricketts crafted an essay during that ten-week trip that explored the impact of waves on coastal marine life. However, the essay and the Alaskan voyage were largely overshadowed by Ricketts's California adventures. Editor and whale biologist Janice M. Straley writes poignantly of Ricketts's influence on her own life and career. Her revised edition of *Ed Ricketts: From Cannery Row to Sitka, Alaska* is a fresh and compelling collection celebrating the life of this iconic scientist. Appearing again in this revised edition, Ricketts's "Wave Shock Essay" illustrates his work and quest for answers to countless marine biology questions. A preface and foreword expand this edition, along with a new essay on the creation of the classic marine biology text *Between Pacific Tides* by Ricketts and Calvin. Works by the original researchers and scientists remain, some of them updated or slightly revised. Additional illustrations by Norman Campbell provide beautiful visual renderings of Ricketts's passion: the diverse and bountiful inhabitants of the waters along the Pacific Coast.
My Heart Is Good is a history of treaty rights, told through the life story of Port Gamble S’Klallam elder and former tribal chair Ron Charles, with context and background provided by anthropologist Josh Wisniewski. In recounting Charles’s story, the book traces the historical arc of the Port Gamble S’Klallams from treaty signing to the landmark 1974 Boldt Decision that affirmed tribal fishing rights in Washington State, the subsequent 1994 court decision affirming the tribes’ shellfish harvesting treaty rights, and the growth of today’s S’Klallam commercial fishing fleet. My Heart Is Good offers keen insights into the impact of the Boldt Decision on tribal communities in western Washington and the subsequent development of tribal fisheries management. In chronicling Ron Charles’s pivotal role during this transition, it shows how one small Indian community transformed into the stable commercial fishing community it is today. Through this unique collaboration, My Heart Is Good makes an original contribution to the growing body of treaty-rights literature, Salish Sea history, and Native American oral history.
Take a look at recent articles about My Heart Is Good:
My Heart Is Good: Treaty Rights and Food Sovereignty for the S’Klallam Fishing Community by Angela Downs at The Jefferson County Beacon
Former S'Klallam Tribe chair shares history of tribal fishing, treaties in Washington by Peiyu Lin at the Kitsap Sun
‘My Heart Is Good’ tells ‘an untold story’ by Diane Urbani de la Paz for Peninsula Daily News
Of Note
We were surprised and deeply grateful to have received one of fifty awards given by Humanities WA this year in celebration of their fiftieth anniversary, acknowledging Empty Bowl’s five-decade-long contribution to the humanities. We were especially moved by the words of our nominators: “The people of Washington State are fortunate to have a publisher like this, which originated as a quixotic idea from a bunch of muddy tree planters, but which has become a literary press of unique and diverse voices connecting the Pacific Northwest to the world, and vice versa.” We’re honored to be in good company with forty-nine others, including two of our Empty Bowl authors, Shin Yu Pai and Kate Reavey! For more details, visit the Humanities WA website. To register to watch the Humanities WA award ceremony, use this link to register.
