The Hopes of Snakes
City Wilds: Essays and Stories About Urban Nature
American Nature Writing, 2000
The Mountain Reader
American Nature Writing 1998
The River Reader
Grrr . . . Poems About Bears
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American Nature Writing, 2000
(Oregon State University Press)
“A Banishment of Crows”
Amazon.com
Although anthologist John Murray does not belabor the point, nature writing by women has long been undervalued, the canon dominated by the likes of Thoreau, Abbey, and Krutch. In the 2000 edition of his well-regarded annual series, Murray--himself a fine nature writer--gathers recently published short work by 19 established and emerging women nature writers. Among these nicely diverse essays are several standouts, such as Carol Ann Bassett's luminous travelogue on a rafting excursion on a Chilean river; Trudy Dittmar's short treatise on the lifeways of the moose; Pattiann Rogers' elegiac meditation on a car-struck snake; Lisa Couturier's lovely memoir on walking through the crow-rich fields of Maryland; and Janisse Ray's thoughtful appreciation of the deer who inhabit the pine woods of Georgia, and the men and women who hunt them. The contributors range in age from 20 to 60; some have published widely, while others are appearing in print for the first time. Although their work differs in many respects, together these writers offer a body of work that admirers of nature literature will want to know about, and follow in the future. Murray's well-conceived anthology is a fine place to start.
--Gregory McNamee
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