ENTER SPACE: Bill Witherspoon’s Short Story & Photographic Record of Experience
Enter Space: Stories from the High Desert, a short story and photography memoir designed by Sky Factory founder Bill Witherspoon, was selected as the Grand Winner of the 2025 Nautilus Book Awards for its beautiful concept of a book as an art piece.
On its 25th anniversary, the Nautilus Book Awards, which celebrates and honors books that support conscious living and social justice, selected Enter Space by Bill Witherspoon as the GOLD Winner in the Memoirs & Personal Journey category.
Most remarkably though, among the nearly one thousand entries received across its 35 categories, the editorial jury selected Enter Space as the 2025 Grand Winner for its subject matter, both in narrative and visual expression, as much as for its unique craftsmanship—five accordion-folded themed volumes nestled in a clamshell box—which allows for a unique tactile and spatial experience.
The Nautilus Book Awards, an active community of writers, avid readers and conscientious critics, recognize specialty, small press and independent books that extol four core values that make better books for a better world:
- Conscious and Restorative Practices
- Wellness / Love / Beauty
- Spiritual Growth
- Social Change and Social Justice
About the Book
In ancient times, the geography of a place was so intrinsic to a person’s identity and character that one’s name was meaningless without reference to place—Francis of Assisi, Elaine of Aquitaine, Augustine of Hippo—are but a few noteworthy examples. One would not be amiss to follow suit with the author of Enter Space—Bill of Ouragon (French root of Oregon).
The 27 stories and the 108 photographs that have been collected in five thematic booklets lay witness to a longitudinal experiment carried out over a lifetime by artist Bill Witherspoon. Back in 1961, as a nineteen-year-old, Bill travelled to Southeastern Oregon’s High Desert—the western edge of the 200,000 square mile Great Basin.
There, in North America’s largest area of endorheic watersheds—those that retain water and allow no outflow to other external bodies but instead collect into seasonal or permanent bodies of water—he would discover a symbiotic relationship with the vast geological expanse.
“I am the space where I am.”
—Noel Arnaud, French poet
Just as the desert’s patterns tell of the forces that shape this unique topography, the stories and photographs in Enter Space stand as a record of Bill’s transformation from young man, threadbare artist, and spiritual seeker to seasoned surveyor, conscientious ecologist, and most remarkably, mirror of the desert.
Enter Space is a collection of events where the photography foreshadows the storyteller. Bill has experienced remarkable things out there—sharing a porch with rattlesnakes, walking among the West’s last wild horses, and even forging a long friendship with a rancher named Dan Barry—who shared a tacit acquiescence that certain events, out in the desert, defy explanation.
Like peeling a good onion, Bill’s stories have layers that you sense, rather than see. Yet, those layers run deep. They are memorable because they brim with the genuine surprise of one who writes to make sure that something did—indeed, occur. Something timeless runs through them. It’s almost like Bill sought to write them before he himself disappears into the sagebrush wind that sweeps the wide-open desert playa.
The 27 stories explore the landscape with the zeal of a seasoned naturalist while others dip into the poetics of solitude and the spiritual alchemy present when one approaches the land with reverence and gratitude. Other tales narrate the artist’s attempt to paint the evanescence of late afternoon while a select few—brief and intense like poems—detail the indelible memory of experiences, including devotional ones that defy categorization.
Spanning five decades from 1962 to 2019, each story reveals a little more about the deep beauty that nature hides in plain sight. If one could see deeply enough, could build a life out of such serendipitous encounters, one might uncover a measure of grace, be touched and sensitized by the depth, even the source of life.
Enter Space is that uncommon gem—witness to a life few of us can sketch out, yet one that offers unspoken mysteries to the explorer of consciousness.
The 27 stories and 108 photographs of southeastern Oregon were collected over 50 years of forays into the high desert into five thematic booklets—Awakenings, Longings, Flights, Gifts, and Invocations—all nestled within an elegant white box embossed with the title—Enter Space.
The book as an art piece features a Limited-Edition run of 250 signed copies and a 750 first edition run. The book and its origins can be explored on the website enterspacenow.com.
ENTER SPACE Book Reviews
“Enter Space engages us on many levels: visual, intellectual, spiritual. Like a congenial companion, Bill Witherspoon shares his experiences of the high desert in engaging stories. The narratives and photographs together bring us into the beauty of physical spaces that evoke the grandeur of nature and our fellowship in encountering it.
“They invite us to open our minds not only to the space around us, but also to the inner space that does the beholding, and to our fellow beings who share these spaces with us: the planet, our minds, spirit, and ultimately the source that gives them meaning and value. The visual beauty of the pictures brings a sense of pleasure and solace, but not simple repose: they invite us to a journey beyond and a journey within.”
Rev. Richard Viladesau, scholar & theologian
author of Theological Aesthetics: God in Imagination, Beauty, and Art
Professor Emeritus, Department of Theology, Fordham University
“I have a twelve thousand volume library in my office in Helsinki; I can sincerely confess that the appearance of the white box of ENTER SPACE, containing the various parts of the book, is the most inviting of them all. When looking at the individual parts of the box/book, which one can reorganize at one´s will, the experience turns into a miniature exhibition. This makes the experience of looking and reading the book uniquely personal, tactile and activating.
“The glossy images themselves have an impressive sense of quality and uniqueness. They are stunning, both in their photographic and printing qualities; each image projects a sense of authenticity. The technical perfection of the images makes them feel like genuine photographic prints. The texts are poetic, inspired and true reflections of the author’s countless journeys and endless stays in the solitude and silence of the High Desert of Eastern Oregon.
Juhani Pallasmaa, architect and scholar, HonSAFA, HonFAIA, IntFRIBA
author of The Eyes of the Skin: Architecture and the Senses
Professor Emeritus, Aalto University, Helsinki
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