Monday, June 16, 2008

“Where is Nature” Press Release

Whole Terrain, Antioch University New England’s nationally acclaimed literary journal, announces the publication of its 15th annual edition: “Where is Nature?” Each volume of Whole Terrain celebrates reflective writing about nature and work in the environmental field. Our contributors include scientists, activists, educators, poets, and others who encounter nature’s variety.

In answering the question “Where is Nature?,” the secret is in knowing how to look in even the most unlikely places. In her essay “City Harvest,” Jeny Randall finds that living in New York City allows for unexpected discoveries of nature in the seasonal produce at the Union Square greenmarket. Meghan Sullivan, in “Nature’s Patterns,” reveals mathematical patterns, such as the Fibonacci Sequence, that underscore the spirals in pinecones and pineapples, the shapes of ice crystals, and the arrangements of stars. In “Levees, Love,” Sheryl St. Germain finds nature in a built environment—the grass-covered levees that shaped the landscape of her New Orleans childhood.

Identifying where humans end and nature begins is an age-old pursuit. In “Couvade Days,” Michael Branch discovers that the force of nature in human relationships is enough to elicit a set of physical symptoms that replicate those of his pregnant wife. John Tallmadge, in “The Cathedral and the Shell,” finds nature in the cultural heights of the Notre Dame cathedral in Paris. In Tyler Sparks’s poem “injection,” a death row inmate examines his interconnectedness with a spider in the corner of his prison cell.

From the miniscule to the massive, the fabric of all growing and living things weaves timelessly with the nonliving. In studying volcanoes, John Calderazzo assures us that nature is not just the living and breathing, but also in the perpetual churning of rock and lava. Soil ecologist Rachel Thiet delights in life on microscopic scales. Physicist and writer Freeman Dyson asks us to expand our notion of life in the universe, and suggests that warm spots in an otherwise cold universe might harbor nature yet unknown.

A lavish, sixty-pages, “Where is Nature?” includes nine beautiful essays, five poems, an extensive interview, and abundant artwork—all offering diverse and surprising elements of nature. For the first time, there is a several-page display of full color artwork including the work of three artists. A gift to the senses, “Where is Nature?” will by turns entertain, inform, delight, and amaze. Information about purchase is available on our website. A non-profit publication, Whole Terrain depends on the support of readers to continue to provide a rare literary experience.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for sharing this.