Publishing the Southwest

This issue of Journal of the Southwest features Charles Bowden (1945–2014), one of the Southwest's eminent writers and a vocal historian of its future. Most essays in this volume are biographical and autobiographical—the analytics and syntheses will come in due time. Born in Illinois, Bowden was raised in Tucson, graduated from the University of Arizona, and lived most of his life in Arizona and the Southwest. He studied the region's issues, met its people, and felt its pulse as he traveled its highways, hiked its trails, and worried over its future. In addition to more than two-dozen books, Bowden produced a flurry of significant news stories and topical articles. As a reporter for the Tucson Citizen newspaper, he earned a bevy of journalism awards and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. He founded and edited City Magazine and contributed groundbreaking essays to Arizona Highways, National Geographic, GQ, Harper's, Aperture, Mother Jones, and Esquire. Bowden's work covers a sprawling range of issues—from water shortages to urbanization, from the drug war and political corruption to poverty and violence. A college and graduate school history major, his vivid writing was based on a deep understanding of science, economics, natural history, anthropology, and geography. Bowden contributed to Journal of the Southwest in 1997 and 2007, and he appears twice in the Southwest Center Book Series—The Secret Forest (1993), accompanied by Jack Dykinga's photographs, and Chihuahua (1996), with photographs by Virgil Hancock. We are pleased to present this special issue of JSW on Charles Bowden, featuring a range of contributions from colleagues, associates, friends, and family. We thank the Agnese Nelms Haury Program in Environment and Social Justice for supporting its publication with a generous grant.