America is at a crossroads. Can we
find a common ground?
An
eclectic anthology of passionate letters to America during a time when politics
and perspectives collide
Dear America:
Letters of Hope, Habitat, Defiance, and Democracy -
Simmons Buntin, Elizabeth Dodd
& Derek Sheffield (editors)
“Action
is the antidote to despair.” - Joan Baez
Since the 2106 presidential election,
America has been barrelling headfirst toward a crossroads. Conflicting
political and social perspectives reflect a need to collectively define our
moral imperatives, clarify cultural values, and inspire meaningful change. In
that patriotic spirit, hundreds of writers, poets, artists, scientists, and
political and community leaders have come together sharing their impassioned
letters to America in a project envisioned and published by the online journal Terrain.org—the “Letters to America” series.
More than 130 works, all calls to action
for common ground and conflict resolution with a focus on the environment and
social justice, are collected in Dear
America. Taken as a whole, the work is a diverse clarion call of literary
reactions to the nation’s challenges as we approach future political elections
(especially the one coming this November).
The book includes impassioned letters from experts,
artists, and leaders such as Seth Abramson, Ellen Bass,
Jericho Brown, Francisco Cantรบ, Kurt Caswell, Victoria Chang, Camille T. Dungy,
Tarfia Faizullah, Blas Falconer, Attorney General Bob Ferguson, David Gessner,
Katrina Goldsaito, Kimiko Hahn, Brenda Hillman, Jane Hirschfield, Linda Hogan,
Pam Houston, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Karen An-hwei Lee, Christopher Merrill,
Kathryn Miles, Kathleen Dean Moore, Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Naomi Shihab Nye,
Elena Passarello, Dean Rader, Scott Russell Sanders, Lauret Savoy, Gary Soto,
Pete Souza, Kim Stafford, Sandra Steingraber, Arthur Sze, Scott Warren, Debbie
Weingarten, Christian Wiman, Robert Wrigley, and others.
“The
voices in this essential anthology are anything but silent. Indeed, they are
voices of hope, habitat, defiance, and, most importantly, democracy. Lend your
ears, and then your own voice.” — Simmons Buntin, editor
Talking Points
●
How it got started: The Dear America brings Americans together from across the country and
all walks of life
●
2020 Presidential election: how the outcome
will affect our country from multiple points of view
●
Climate Change - Hear from members
of the Union of Concerned Scientists
●
Excerpts/Interviews with diverse writers from
the fields of science, politics, social justice, education, art, and the
literary community are available for interview and their work available for
excerpt - including:
○
Contributor Pete Sousa, best-selling author and official photographer for the
Obama and Reagan administrations
○
Contributor Bob Ferguson, who holds the most successful legal record in the
country against Trump
○
Letters/poetry from contributors:
Pulitzer Prize winner Elizabeth Rush,
National Book Award winner Arthur Sze,
and finalist Jericho Brown
Dear America encourages readers to come to
a common resolution about the environment and social injustice going on in
America through words of literature and art.
Book royalties will
benefit:
●
American Civil Liberties Union
●
National Resources Defense Council
●
Union of Concerned Scientists
Timely Tie-ins:
Keep
America Beautiful Month - April
Poetry
Month - April
Earth
Day - April 22
Arbor
Day - April 24
World
Press Freedom Day- May 3rd
National
Recommitment Month - May
Clean
Air Month - May
Photo
Month - May
About the Editors
Terrain.org is a
nonprofit literary magazine published online since 1997 that searches for the
interface—the integration—among the built and natural environments that might
be called the soul of place. The works published by Terrain.org ultimately examine the physical realm around us, and
how those environments influence us and each other physically, mentally,
emotionally, and spiritually.
Simmons Buntin, is
editor-in-chief of Terrain.org
He has authored 2 books of poetry, Riverfall,and Bloom, and also Unsprawl:
Remixing Spaces as Places (co-authored with Ken Pirie). He has published poetry,
essays, and technical articles in publications as varied as Edible Baja Arizona, North American Review,
Kyoto Journal, and Bulletin of
Science, Technology, and Society. He has a master’s degree in urban and
regional planning from the University of Colorado, Denver, and an MFA in
creative writing from the University of Arizona. Simmons lives in Tucson,
Arizona.
Elizabeth
Dodd is a
poet and nonfiction writer. Her newest book, Horizon’s
Lens: My Time on the Turning World, was published by the University of Nebraska Press in
2012. For over two decades she has lived in eastern Kansas in the Flint Hills
region, where she is an award-winning professor of creative writing and
literature at Kansas State University.
Derek Sheffield has presented widely at conferences around the West
on the interaction between science and poetry. His own work often explores this
topic and has appeared in Orion, Wilderness, Poetry, The Georgia Review, The
Southern Review, Ecotone, Alaska Quarterly Review, and Southern
Humanities Review, and several anthologies, including New Poets of the American West, The
Ecopoetry Anthology, Nature and
Environmental Writing: A Guide and Anthology, and The World Is Charged: Poetic Engagements with Gerard Manley
Hopkins. Since 2003, he has been a professor of English at Wenatchee Valley
College in central Washington.
Book Details
Paperback: 320 pages
Publisher: Trinity University Press
Price: $24.95
Release Date: April 22, 2020
Language: English
Size: 9”X6”
ISBN 978-1-59534-912-5 (paper)
ISBN 978-1-59534-913-2 (ebook)
Press contact: Leslie Barrett 512-481-7681 leslie@prbythebook.com
No comments:
Post a Comment