Michael E. O'Reilly

A little about myself I’ve spent almost a third of my life in the West, but I’ve always returned to Michigan. I lived in Durango, Colorado, for five years, and Salt Lake City, for seven. My interests are wide-ranging. I work in the hunting and outdoor industry, surrounded by hardcore gun guys and right wingers, some of whom I’ve befriended while maintaining political, social and world views that are basically on the opposite end of the spectrum. As a writer and a pretty opinionated person who’s always ready for a good debate, I’ve found myself in interesting conversations. My education as a businessmen coincided with a crash course in diplomacy, but I guess I’ve always been able to get along with most people I meet. In the grand scheme of things we have to live as people before we act as pundits.   I started writing poems when I was about six. I started using an electric typewriter within a couple years, mostly just copying pages from books, not really writing much. I did continu...

This interview was conducted around 2009, at Ken Sanders Rare Books , in Salt Lake City. MO: Take me through the early days of EarthFirst! The first event was on March 24, 1981 was the cracking of the Glen Canyon dam, which is now infamous. I know about this because about 2 weeks earlier Ed Abbey called me out of the blue. I had learned over the years of our relationship I never called Ed on the phone because Ed hated the damn things. He loved to correspond with people, particularly with his ubiquitous post cards. He loathed telephones. Unless he had something to say, it was like having this “zen” phone conversation. So unless you had something to say, you never called him, ‘cause he didn’t want to talk. So I never, ever called him, almost never. So he calls me up, ‘Ken, this is Ed. Going to be some kind of Spring rites down at Glen canyon dam, at the Lone Rock campground. If you want to talk about that silly calendar of yours come on down.’ And that’s all he said, ‘some kind of Spring...