Description

Sisters of the Earth is a stirring collection of women’s writing on nature: Nature as healer. Nature as delight. Nature as mother and sister. Nature as victim. Nature as companion and reminder of what is wild in us all. Here, among more than a hundred poets and prose writers, are Diane Ackerman on the opium of sunsets; Ursula K. Le Guin envisioning an alternative world in which human beings are not estranged from their planet; and Julia Butterfly Hill on weathering a fierce storm in the redwood tree where she lived for more than two years. Here, too, are poems, essays, stories, and journal entries by Emily Dickinson, Alice Walker, Terry Tempest Williams, Willa Cather, Gretel Erlich, Adrienne Rich, and others—each offering a vivid, eloquent response to the natural world.

This second edition of Sisters of the Earth is fully revised and updated with a new preface and nearly fifty new pieces, including new contributions by Louise Erdrich, Pam Houston, Zora Neale Hurston, Starhawk, Joy Williams, Kathleen Norris, Rita Dove, and Barbara Kingsolver.

About the Author

Lorraine Anderson is a freelance editor, writer, and teacher whose work focuses on encouraging a reciprocal relationship with nature. She served as lead editor of the college textbook Literature and the Environment: A Reader on Nature and Culture (1998) and collaborated with Thomas Edwards on the anthology At Home on This Earth: Two Centuries of U.S. Women's Nature Writing (2002). She holds a B.A in English from the University of Utah and an M.S. in creation sprituality from Naropa University, and lives in Davis, California.

Praise for Sisters of the Earth: Women's Prose and Poetry About Nature…

“Not only is [Sisters of the Earth] a pleasure; it is relevant and even urgent—politically, aesthetically and spiritually.” —The Women’s Review of Books

“These voices remind, rejoice, bewail, berate—with love, joy, compassion, energy, nerve and outrage—and we’d better pay attention.” –Janet Kauffman, author of Places in the World a Woman Could Walk

“The voices of . . . women—white, black, Native American—sing out in this luminous anthology, which spans centuries, genres, and literary careers…. Taste and sensitivity are evident throughout.” –Publishers Weekly

“Anderson’s intelligent preface and headnotes add much to this generous, long overdue, and very welcome collection.” –Outside