Saving the Earth

Article: Nature Writing - Anthologies

Anthologies may be the best way to get an introduction to nature writing – you’re benefitting from the editors’ selection of material they judge to be the finest writing on the particular theme represented by the anthology or collection you’re reading.

And there’s a world of great ones to choose from!  Library of America is releasing, on Earth Day 2008, its new collection, American Earth: Environmental Writing Since Thoreau, edited by veteran nature writer Bill McKibben. This collection includes early conservationists, exponents of wilderness areas, ecological visionaries, and contemporary activist/writers.

Other fine overall collections are The Oxford Book of Nature Writing; At Home on this Earth: Two Centuries of U.S. Women’s Nature Writing; and The Future of Nature: Writing on a Human Ecology from Orion Magazine.

Anthologies with interesting themes are Reading the Roots, American Nature Writing Before Walden; Natural State: A Literary Anthology of California Nature Writing; Nature’s Fading Chorus: Classic and Contemporary Writings on Amphibians; and Coyote at Large: Humor in American Nature Writing.

The great diversity in American nature writing is reflected in the diversity of these wonderful anthologies. It’s a good place to start.

David Yarian, Ph.D.

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