ENTERPRISE — March is Women’s History Month and each year, Fishtrap Fireside takes that opportunity to celebrate with three generations of local women storytellers.

For 2025 the readers are longtime Fishtrap friends Nodya Papineau, Janis Carper and Kathy Hunter.

Fishtrap Fireside takes place Friday, March 7, 7 p.m. at Fishtrap, 107 W. Main St., and online at fishtrap.org.

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 the region are thinking about and writing down. Since the program launched in 2013, more than 170 Wallowa County writers have stepped up to the podium to share their work.

Admission is free although donations are always welcome. Light snacks are provided and drinks are available for purchase. An intermission takes place after the featured readings followed by an open mic. Five open mic spots are available for up to five minutes. Writers of all ages and experience are encouraged to sign up beginning at 6:30 p.m.

The March edition of Fishtrap Fireside is sponsored by The Nature Conservancy.

Featured readers

Janis Carper was raised in rural eastern Washington, spent a dozen years in Seattle and eventually found her home in Wallowa County in 2001. She’s worked at Fishtrap for 20 years, and has also helped grow and nurture the music community through her work as director of the Wallowa Valley Music Alliance. As an artist and musician, she has always had a knack for songwriting, and is now exploring other forms of expression through the written word. When not making art or music, she loves spending her free time romping through the woods with her big brown dog.

An award-winning journalist, Kathy Hunter spent 23 years in Alaska writing for newspapers and magazines, editing Alaska Today magazine, and teaching. Her fondest memories of Alaska include feature writing for The Kodiak Fishwrapper and Litter Box Liner. Since “retiring” to Wallowa County she has won many hearts as a performer, an author of children’s books, and as the creator of whimsical clay sculptures.

Nodya Papineau is 25 and a fifth generation Wallowa Countian presently living in Lostine with her two daughters, Clover and Ivy; two cats, Beelz and Ruby; and her partner of seven years, Franklin, whom she met at the 2017 Summer Fishtrap Gathering of Writers. Nodya has been writing for as long as she can remember. Poetry and fantasy, in particular, fuel her soul. She was elected to the Fishtrap board of directors in 2023, the same year she earned her bachelor’s in English at EOU.

Papineau has spent much of her adult life teaching literacy to Wallowa County youth as a paraeducator at Wallowa Middle School and various afterschool programs for elementary, middle and high school students. She can often be found in her kitchen experimenting with sourdough, gardening, kayaking, hiking through the Eagle Cap terrain, or galavanting through the many lands her backyard can become — slaying dragons, sailing the seas, brewing magic potions and experiencing the beauty of childhood all over again through the eyes and imaginations of her own daughters.