ROBERTA: Authors sometimes dream that a current event will dovetail with their book's launch and bring it to prominence. This is not the case for Susan Cerulean, the co-editor of Unspoiled: Writers Speak for Florida's Coast, a collection of thirty-six essays and poems contributed by writers including Connie May Fowler, Janisse Ray and many others. For Cerulean and her co-authors, the BP oil disaster on April 20 occurred just as their book is about to be launched, and embodies their...

Writer and keyboardist Chuck Leavell introduces this video series on the Mother Nature Network entitled, Love of the Land. http://www.mnn.com/mnntv/love-of-the-land "You know, when I am not out rocking and rolling with the Rolling Stones or some of the other musical artists that I have been so privileged to work with throughout my career, or maybe working on my own solo projects, you’re very likely to find me right here on our own family forest, Charlane Plantation, in central Georgia. And here, I...

In many ways, Thomas Rain Crowe has had two careers. One he has spent traveling the world, writing and translating poetry. Twenty-five years ago, though, he returned to North Carolina where, with the help of the land outside his door, he has rediscovered the joy of local activism and the beauty of the place in which he was raised. An internationally published and recognized writer, Crowe is the author of more than twenty books, including The Laugharne Poems (published in Wales...

Florida landscape photographer and naturalist, Jeff Ripple and I both grew up in Florida—he in the wild southwest and me in the manicured, overly landscaped southeast. As an expatriate Floridian, I am always eager to discuss the beauty and nuances of my home state, the tangle of scrub and swamp and woods that is always in jeopardy of the developer’s heavy hand. Ripple, uses a Wisner 4X5 wooden field camera and large-format transparency film to “bring together the dynamic...

First published in The Flagpole, Athens, Georgia, May 2, 2007. The fate of Georgia’s coast has been in the political spotlight recently like never before. The final hours of this year’s legislative session at the Georgia General Assembly (now over, but for the special session to work out the state budget) saw a bill about development on Jekyll Island making its way to a difficult compromise that will preserve the island’s undeveloped south end for now. (If you missed it, you...

Janisse Ray grew up on the grounds of a Georgia junkyard, amid the longleaf pine and wiregrass. However, she does not focus on wreckage and waste, but on doing what she can to reverse the destruction of the natural world that she loves. There is hope, grace, and determination in each of her books, which include Pinhook: Finding Wholeness in a Fragmented Land, Wild Card Quilt: Taking a Chance on Home, and Ecology of a Cracker Childhood. Jones:...

Floridian Bill Belleville’s essays, books, and films might lead his audiences to the swamp, the sea, or the jungle. He has toured the world, recording his travels and revealing remote places. Yet, his writing does not only highlight his adventures to exotic locales; it reveals a vision of the world that is clear and honest. Jones: You mention on the Southern Nature Project website that you need to have a "gut relationship" with a place. Can you elaborate...

(Note: This interview with John Terres was made shortly before his death in 2006. The photo shows Mark Kutner and Dr. Terres.) John Terres is known throughout our community as a highly intelligent gentleman with an unrivaled caring disposition. Fortunately, as John approaches his 100th year, I am able to say that he has been able to touch the lives of literally millions of people in countless communities through his work as a scientist, author, and naturalist. To aptly discuss the life of John...

Janet Lembke, often referred to as an “acclaimed Southern naturalist”, is the author of Dangerous Birds, River Time, Despicable Species, Skinny-Dipping, and The Quality of Living. Her essays and poetry have appeared in publications such as Audubon, Sierra, the Southern Review, and The New York Times Book Review. Ms. Lembke is also a translator of classical Greek and Latin texts and an avid gardener. In her writing and in her life, Ms. Lembke takes great joy in...

“Where once there were jagged, forested ridgelines,” writes Erik Reece for Harper’s magazine, “now there is only a series of plateaus, staggered grey shelves where grass struggles to grow in crushed rock and shale.” Kentucky-born poet and essayist Erik Reece went to Robinson Forest in Kentucky, intending to write poems and to expose his students to some of the most diverse wilderness in the United States. To write about the forest he loved, he discovered, he must first write about...