In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

/\ cKMOvv^eDCMf N/Tr One morning when I woke in the forest, I looked up to first light at the tops of the trees and I could feel their gratitude. I could feel their green surge of thanks for the sunlight, for the earth, for water. And I could feel their affinity for one another. It was a very quiet feeling, ordinary, a sensation of every morning. I will never forget. In making this book, I have that feeling again. How many people have helped me, how manyplaces have shaped me?As this book tries to tell, the muses are all around us, and over the years this book has become a home for stories and ideas from many sources. My students are so hungry to speak their spirits, they gift me with treasure. I can't name them all, but their stories are who I am.And with these students, it has been my privilege to teach since 1986 at the Northwest Writing Institute, apart of the Graduate School of Education at Lewis and Clark College in Oregon. In the institute, my teaching companions spill ideas and insights like thistledown exploding in the wind. It's hard to tell after awhile where ideas began, who first tried a certain kind of writing or teaching before we all tried variations. I would honor everyone there, not in this note but with this book. Diane McDevitt has helped me see creative ministryin my administrative job.The institute, and this book, would not existwithout her. And I am grateful to Lewis and Clark College for suffering us to pursue a mission that some might not understand, and for a sabbaticalin 2000-2001 to complete this book. I am grateful to the Fishtrap Writers Gathering and the Sitka Center for Art and Ecology for the chance to teach exploratory work- shops, and for refuge to complete the writing. I am also grateful to the editors of the following magazines for previously publishing chapters from this book: Teachers and Writers Magazine, Mossy Creek Journal) Newsfrom theLoft, the Voice and the Quarterly of the National Writing Project, the newsletter of the Wyoming Arts Commission, and American Art. "The Writer as Professional Eavesdropper" was published in a different form in Writer's Craft, Teacher's Art, edited by Mimi Schwartz (Portsmouth, N.H.: Boynton/Cook, 1991). "The Good Son" was published in Writing Path 2:Poetry and Prosefrom Writers' Conferences , edited by Michael Pettit (Iowa City:Universityof Iowa Press, 1996), and in Harper's. "Rosie's Book of Sayings" appeared in an earlier form in TheAlphabet of the Trees: A Guide toNature Writing, edited by Christian McEwen and Mark Statman (New York: Teachers and Writers Collaborative, 2000). Jim Hepworth, Margot Thompson, and Richard Sterling helped in particular ways, and my three agents over the span of this book's making—Elizabeth Grossman, Jennie McDonald, and Doug Stewart —have been winsome listeners to my stories and ideas for a decade, encouraging me to "Write that down, and send it to me." Paul Merchant was especially helpful as I searched for the shape of this book. I am grateful to my editor Barbara Ras for seeing this book more as a letter to the life of our time than simply a text about the act of writing, and to Courtney Denney for her copyediting. Finally, this book is for my wife. In the writing life, there is much not knowing. Like the tide, I advance and ebb. Perrin believes. 138 | Acknowledgments ...

Share