Literature and the Environment ─ A Reader on Nature and Culture

Lorraine Anderson grew up on a chicken ranch in the Santa Clara Valley of California in the days when it was still known as the Valley of Heart’s Delight, when blossoming orchards stretched as far as the eye could see in springtime. She contains the imprint of the earth’s beauty in her cells. She edited Sisters of the Earth: Women’s Prose and Poetry About Nature (1991, second edition 2003), co-edited At Home on This Earth: Two Centuries of U.S. Women’s Nature Writing (2002), and co-authored Cooking with Sunshine (2006). An adjunct professor at Linn-Benton Community College in Corvallis, Oregon, she holds a BA in English from the University of Utah (1975) and an MA in creation spirituality from Naropa University (2000).

Scott Slovic has been a professor of literature and environment at the University of Nevada, Reno, since 1995, where he directed the Center for Environmental Arts and Humanities from 1995 to 2002, co-founded the Graduate Program in Literature and Environment, and currently directs the Core Writing Program. He has written, edited, or co-edited nineteen books in the field of ecocriticism and environmental literature, including Seeking Awareness in American Nature Writing (1992), What’s Nature Worth? (2004), and Going Away to Think (2008). He served as the founding president of the Association for the Study of Literature and Environment from 1992 to 1995 and since 1995 has edited the journal ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment. A three-time Fulbright Scholar (in Germany, Japan, and China), Scott has lectured and taught in many countries throughout the world.

John P. O’Grady was born in New Jersey and born again in the mountains of the American West. As an undergraduate he studied forestry, believing that this was a chance to dwell in deep groves and sequestered places, but when he realized resource management is not an appropriate practice for one who delights less in the chainsaw than in the standing oak, he moved on to pursue graduate studies in English. For a number of years he served as professor of literature and environmental studies. He has lived in California, Idaho, Montana, and Pennsylvania. Now he’s in the Catskill Mountains of New York, where he continues to write. He is the author of Grave Goods (2001) and Pilgrims to the Wild (1993).