Writer Profile
Books & Essays
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Title:
Elemental South: An Anthology of Southern Nature Writing
Date Published:
(edited volume) University of Georgia Press 2004Description:
Rick Bass has two essays in the anthology: "Eating" and "Losses and Gains."
Nature writers know that to be fully human is to be engaged with our natural surroundings. Elemental South is a gathering of works by some of the region?s best nature writers?people who can coax from words the mysteries of our place in the landscape and the human relationship to wildness.
Arranged by theme according to the basic elements by which many cultures on earth interpret?earth, air, fire, water?the writings consider our actual and assumed connections in the greater scheme of functioning ecosystems. As we read of bears, ancient magnolias, swallow-tail kites, the serenity of a country childhood, the pleasure of eating real food, the remarkable provenance of ancient pottery shards, and much more, these works lure us deep into the southern landscape, away from the constructs of humanity and closer to a recognition of our inextricable ties to the earth.
The writers are all participants in the Southern Nature Project, an ongoing endeavor founded on the conviction that writing like the kind gathered here can help us to lead more human, profound, and courageous lives in terms of how we use our earth. Some of the featured writers are originally from the South, and others migrated here?but all have honed their voices on the region?s distinctive landscapes.
Book Review #1:
"Provides a chorus of voices that blend harmoniously despite their different geographies, backgrounds, and styles. By tracing the fault lines and fractures of southern landscapes, society, and spirit, this anthology helps the South begin to heal stronger in the broken places."
?Will Harlan, editor of Blue Ridge Outdoors
Book Review #2:
"Published 150 years after Thoreau's book, it is another Walden. I shall urge each of my grandchildren to read it." Southeastern Geographer, November 2006
Book Review #3:
"This lush collection of works by members of Southern Nature Project showcases the idiosyncratic impact of our region?s natural surroundings on its writers, arguably a stronger influence than the predictable Southern Gothic theme of family secrets."
?Atlanta Magazine
Book Review #4:
"If you like to curl up with a good book on cold winter days and you also love the outdoors, read Elemental South. Each leads us to broader truths through careful observations of our natural surroundings."
?Southern Living
Book Review #5:
"Contains poetry and prose that is deeply philosophical, richly textured, arresting."
?ISLE
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Title:
The Woods Stretched for Miles: New Nature Writing from the South
Date Published:
University of Georgia Press 1999Description:
The Woods Stretched for Miles gathers essays about southern landscape and nature from nineteen writers with geographic or ancestral ties to the region.
From the savannas of south Florida through the hardwood uplands of Mississippi to the coastal rivers of the Carolinas and the high mountains of North Carolina and Tennessee, the range in geography covered is equally broad. With insight and eloquence, these diverse talents take up similar themes: environmental restoration, the interplay between individual and community, the definition of wildness in an area transformed by human activity, and the meaning of our reactions to the natural world.
Readers will treasure the passionate and intelligent honorings of land and nature offered by this rich anthology. With the publication of The Woods Stretched for Miles, southern voices establish their abiding place in the ever-popular nature writing genre.
Book Review #1:
"This is an important book?the first of its kind exclusively on the Southeast. It should appeal to general readers who wish to read about the genre in the Southeast, about the long and complex relationship between American culture and nature, and also about controversial environmental issues in the region."
?John Murray, editor of American Nature Writing
Book Review #2:
"I am delighted with the very concept of this anthology of Southern nature writing. There are dozens and dozens of recent scholarly books on environmental literature and anthologies of nonfiction nature writing, nature poetry, and environmental writing in general, including a number of regionally oriented collections. But, so far, other than Molly Westling's ecocritical studies of Southern fiction, few of these recent publications are explicitly devoted to Southern environmental literature. For this reason, there is a significant void that the The Woods Stretched for Miles is intended to fill?and I think it fills the void quite well."
?Scott Slovic, author of Being in the World: An Environmental Reader for Writers
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Title:
The Sky, the Stars, the Wilderness
Date Published:
Mariner Books 1998 -
Title:
Wild to the Heart
Date Published:
W.W. Norton & Co. 1997Description:
A lyrical exploration of wildness and freedom in nature and in ourselves. In these thirteen essays, Rick Bass is a man divided, a lover of wilderness tied to the city. On long weekends, in his Volkswagen Rabbit, he drives away from Jackson, Mississippi, and the job that confines him. His excursions which take him to southern rivers, southern swamps, and sometimes to conservation meetings also lead to musings about his favorite mountains, grizzly bears, and the wildness in all of us.
Book Review #1:
Rick Bass is a lively, alert, fully engaged writer with something to say and he says it good. Edward Abbey
Book Review #2:
To read this book is to take a first step towards coming to grips with our own wildness. It is a lovely book about important things, and written in a style that will soon be identified with Rick Bass, a style that enhances the material and makes it accessible to anyone who is listening. Wild to the Heart is a worthy addition to the Thoreau, Muir, Dillard, Abbey tradition of American literature that continues to gain importance as we struggle to understand our place in the natural world. Dan o'Brien
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Title:
The Deer Pasture
Date Published:
W.W. Norton & Company 1996