The Bioregional Imagination: Literature, Ecology, and Place

Acknowledgments

xi The seeds for this essay collection on literature, ecology, and place germinated in cyberspace. Cheryll, who wanted to teach a class on bioregional literature and criticism, posted a query to the e-mail list of the Association for the Study of Literature and Environment (asle). Tom then e-mailed Cheryll, suggesting that we edit an anthology on the subject, whereupon we invited Karla to join the team. Our first step was to test the waters by organizing a conference panel on bioregional approaches to literary study; accordingly, we posted a call for papers to the asle e-mail list. We received so many strong proposals that we formed not one but three wellattended conference panels at the 2007 asle conference in Spartanburg, South Carolina. Building on the success of those panels, we used e-mail to solicit essays from colleagues whose bioregional work we admired and to announce an open call for paper proposals. Via e-mail and Skype conference calls, we vetted proposals and corresponded with contributors. To create common ground and foster conversation among the essays, we set up a Google Docs site, where we uploaded a half-dozen core readings in bioregionalism and where contributors could read one another’s drafts, making possible many of the cross references in the final essays. While we took the opportunity to meet face-to-face with many of our contributors and with Judy Purdy of the University of Georgia Press at the 2009 asle A c k n o w l e d g m e n t s Acknowledgments xii conference in Victoria, B.C., we happily acknowledge our indebtedness to the Internet. We have found it to be a marvelous tool for people working in far-flung locales, from Spartanburg to Reno, from Adelaide to Torino, enabling them to enjoy a frequent meeting of minds, allowing the rich compost of ideas from throughout the world to fertilize the bioregional practice of living-in-place. If this use of the placeless Internet to foster place-consciousness seems suspect, we would like to point out that the pages of CoEvolution Quarterly and Whole Earth Review during the 1980s were filled with articles on both bioregional thinking and the promise of a subversive, newfangled tool called the personal computer. The University of Georgia Press has been supportive, exacting, and professional. We feel very fortunate in our choice of publisher. Acquisitions editor Judy Purdy shepherded the project through its early stages, and Nancy Grayson saw the book through to completion. Our thanks to them for being prompt, clear, helpful—and patient. Two anonymous outside reviewers offered an effective mix of inspiring praise and constructive criticism, and we appreciate their meticulous reports that raised the bar and pushed us to make the book better than it otherwise would have been. We also wish to thank the staff at the University of Georgia Press, particularly Beth Snead, Jon Davies, and John McLeod, and our copy editor , Dawn McIlvain Stahl, for their fine work. Our universities offered crucial support, which we gratefully acknowledge . The University of Nebraska, Lincoln, funded a research assistant and awarded a grant that helped defray expenses. At the University of Nevada, Reno, the College of Liberal Arts Scholarly and Creative Activities Grant Program provided a grant, and the English Department funded a summer research assistant. Webster University underwrote photocopying and contributed a grant from the Dean of Arts and Sciences. Our research assistants deserve special mention. Tom’s assistant, Tracy Tucker, tracked down core bioregional readings and helped set up the Google Docs site. Cheryll’s assistant, Kyle Bladow, collated, proofread, and formatted the manuscript and annotated the Bioregional Booklist. Our sincere thanks to Tracy and Kyle—it’s been a privilege to work with you. We count ourselves extraordinarily lucky to have engaged the services of cartographer Ezra Zeitler and indexer Sandra Marshall, both of whom are masters of their craft. The Association for the Study of Literature and Environment facilitated this project in more ways than space permits us to enumerate. To show our appreciation, royalties from the sale of this book go directly to asle to Acknowledgments xiii further its mission “to promote the understanding of nature and culture for a sustainable world by fostering a community of scholars, teachers, and writers who study the relationships among literature, culture, and the physical environment.” In the profession we would like to thank John Tallmadge for his...