La Conner Weekly News’ resident “zookeeper” columnist is Mel Damski, who has directed 29 movies and hundreds of hours of series television, from MASH to Boston Legal. For the last eight years, he has been the producer-director of Psych on USA network.

He has been nominated for an Oscar, two Emmy Awards, and earned a Christopher Award for Everybody’s Baby: the Rescue of Jessica McClure.

A graduate of theAmericanFilmInstituteCenterfor Advanced Film Studies, Mel has taught at AFI, USC and most recently NYU. He is the founder of the Cascadia Film Workshops, which will launch for two weeks this Jun...