Friday, November 7 – 7:00pm
107 W. Main St. – Enterprise
Free Admission
November’s monthly Fishtrap Fireside reading series features three local Wallowa County writers; Talia Filipek, Catherine Matthias, and Randi Movich.
Fishtrap Fireside is a monthly reading series designed to celebrate diverse voices from local writers and storytellers. Each month offers a fresh look at what people who live in Northeast Oregon are thinking about and writing down. Since the program launched in 2013, more than 170 writers have stepped up to the podium to share something they’ve written. With each Fishtrap Fireside event, the audience gets to enjoy a variety of storytelling from their friends and neighbors including poetry, fiction, history, humor, memoir, sci-fi fantasy, essay, travelog, food stories, comedy, and much more.
Fishtrap Fireside takes place at Fishtrap’s event space on Main Street in Enterprise. For those who can’t make it in-person, anyone anywhere can take in Fireside online at Fishtrap.org and on Fishtrap’s YouTube Channel. Admission is free although donations are always welcome. Light snacks are provided and drinks are available for purchase. An open mic takes place after the featured readings. Five spots are available to sign up for when the doors open at 6:30pm. Writers of all ages and experience are encouraged to come.
November’s Fishtrap Fireside is sponsored by Terminal Gravity
More on the featured readers for November below:
Talia Filipek
Talia Filipek mothers two little ones and delights in capturing the world and endearing characters in the woodwork through photo or story. Her creative practice expands with a wild landscape at foot and a hearty pursuit for nuggets of love and bursts of absurdity. With thanks to the Bryn Lunde Memorial Scholarship, she was fortunate to spend a previous summer with great authors and poet laureates at Summer Fishtrap, whom inspired her to tend to this little writing flame. She’s excited to say she’s been writing more than ever. Fishtrap has given her a space to share these inner workings with the world from her home on Hoof Hearted Farm in Joseph, Oregon.
Catherine Matthias
Catherine Matthias was an outdoor child—biking, swimming, endless nights of tag, hide-and-seek, and touch football. Her book reading occurred at night, snuggled in bed, the light on past midnight, telling herself, “Just one more chapter.”
She is the author of six early reader picture books published in English and Spanish by Children’s Press, an imprint of Scholastic Books. Her nonfiction adult book, The Word Gobblers – a handbook for parents working with children struggling to read, was published by Square One Publishers, NY, in 2021. Catherine, a Certified Irlen Screener, addresses the medically-based causes and traits of the condition and provides parents and teachers with tools to identify the problem and relieve the physical and emotional symptoms.
Published June 2025, When the Sky Turned to Dust, a middle grade historical fiction, follows the Dolan family during two of the greatest disasters in American history, the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl of the 1930s.
Catherine lives in rural Joseph with her husband, Stewart Jones, and is currently working with local artist and illustrator, Joan Gilbert, on a picture book about a mischievous cat.
Randi Movich
Randi Movich is a nurse, world wanderer, mother of 3 insightful daughters, 1 fur baby, and partner to Jeff (the glue who keeps it all together). She feels bliss at her home, Kissin’ Thistle Farm, on Alder Slope in the shadow of Chief Joseph Mountain doing yoga, drinking coffee under the apple tree, writing, tending the garden and herding chickens. Born in the wilds of North Hollywood, California she found refuge in the Sierra Mountains with her Eagle Scout father who guided to summits and glacial lakes. She started skiing at the age of 5, though now less likely to spend all of her money on a lift ticket like she did in her 20s. She earned a BA in Biology from UC Santa Cruz (Go Banana Slugs!), and worked on field projects with elephant seals, orcas, spotted owls, goshawks, forest carnivores, salmon, amphibians and reptiles learning to approach our planet with wonderment. Later, she added an MS in Forest Resources from the University of Idaho, and a BS in Nursing from OHSU. She was an exchange student in Israel and France and lived on a collective farm and a kibbutz. Spending two years as a Peace Corps volunteer in Guinea, West Africa opened her eyes to the true meaning of, “it takes a village”. This is also where she first met Doctors Without Borders (MSF) staff and dreamed “one day”. Ten years later, she returned to West Africa with her new husband in tow, spending a year with the Institute of Current World Affairs learning and writing about traditional healers and medicinal plants used in reproductive health. Her time spent with healers led her to nursing school at age 45 and has since worked at Winding Waters Clinic as a nurse care manager, diabetes educator, lactation consultant, and wound care specialist. A few years ago, her love of writing was rekindled with the gift of a Fishtrap Outpost trip. She recently returned from 10 months in West Africa an assignment with the MSF Academy for Healthcare at the Hangha Mother and Child Hospital in Kenema, Sierra Leone. There she managed training programs for nurses, midwives and community health officers. She is deciding what will be the next steps with MSF.