Recipient Selected for Pattie Layser Greater Yellowstone Fellowship

Katie Christiansen of Evergreen, Colo. is the recipient of the Wyoming Arts Council’s 2022 Pattie Layser Greater Yellowstone Creative Writing & Journalism Fellowship.

            An honorable mention was given to Nikki Mann of Lander, Wy.

The Pattie Layser Greater Yellowstone Creative Writing & Journalism Fellowship is made possible through generous funding from The Pattie and Earle Layser Memorial Fund. This annual prestigious fellowship of $3,500 is awarded to a creative writer (poetry, fiction, nonfiction), or those in the field of journalism (writer, photojournalist, videographer, documentary filmmaker, online or print media) who demonstrate serious inquiry and dedication to the Greater Yellowstone region through their work.

Over the next year, Christiansen will create or complete a relevant publishable or produced work and have the opportunity for a housing residency in the greater Yellowstone region.

            Katie Shepherd Christiansen is an artist, naturalist, and conservationist. Katie is editor and illustrator of the book “The Artist’s Field Guide to Yellowstone” (2021), which she created in partnership with fifty local artists and writers. Since 2016, she has served as Artist-in-Residence at the Northern Rockies Conservation Cooperative (Jackson, Wyo.). Her intricate wildlife portraits, nature writing, and hand-painted maps appear in books, galleries, journals, and on natural area interpretive resources across the Yellowstone region, including Bozeman’s Story Mill Community Park, Jackson’s Astoria Hot Springs Conservancy, and in Paradise Valley’s West Creek Ranch.

            She is a two-time recipient of National Endowment for the Arts funding, and through her organization, Coyote Art & Ecology, has collaborated with various local, national, and international organizations including Trust for Public Land, City of Bozeman, Gallatin Watershed Council, Ucross Foundation, Jackson Hole Public Art, Astoria Park Conservancy, Teton Conservation District, the Town of Jackson, and National Geographic. Katie is a contributing columnist to “Mountain Journal” and illustrates books including the recently released, “Atlas of Conflict Resolution: A Montana Field-Guide to Sharing Ranching Landscapes with Wildlife” by Dr. Hannah Jaicks. She holds a master’s degree from Yale’s School of the Environment, where she studied as a Wyss Conservation Scholar focusing her research on Yellowstone’s biophysical, cultural, and political contexts.

            Katie’s knowledge of natural systems and sense for beauty lend to her artwork’s fine attention to detail. Katie’s work in conservation spans science, policy, management, communications, grassroots organizing, community building, outreach, and education. Her work is inspired by her time spent in nature across the intermountain West, her childhood in Northern Michigan, and her time now as the mother of two young children.

Katie’s newest endeavor, “The Greater Yellowstone Seasonal Almanac,” is a practical guide to help to reconnect local people to the land, to wild communities, and to each other by bringing to life the cyclical, concurrent happenings of our ecosystem in word and illustration. The project is supported by the Raynes Wildlife Fund and the Pattie Layser Greater Yellowstone Fellowship.

The jurors this year were Christine Peterson and Susan Tweit.

For more information about the fellowship visit the Arts Council website wyomingartscouncil.org or call 307-274-6673.