Search results for ""Author John Lane""

Jimmy Buffet has his "Coconut Telegraph," but he's got nothing on nature writer John Lane, who sends his musings into the world each week in a popular newspaper column named after the ubiquitous green vine that's swallowing the South. Lane is a champion of the underdog, and what he seeks to protect is the character and the beauty of the place he lives. Lane, a much published poet and essayist, is a soldier for sustainability and a warrior for wildness. Using both wit and wisdom he takes on the environmental issues of our times, often by simply taking us on a walk through the woods or a drive up the highway. Just when he seems to write best about animals in his South Carolina Upcountry backyard-deer, tree frogs, and, yes, coyotes-he captivates us with a river adventure. He writes with as much intensity about old maps or a favorite pickup truck as he does about the socio-political issues that concern him-land use, urban planning, and conservation. These four dozen short essays, published by Community Journals in upstate South Carolina, will make you look more closely at the world around you and also, Lane hopes, will make you look ahead: to take actions, large and small, to protect the place you live.

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One night, poet and environmental writer John Lane tuned in to a sound from behind his house that he had never heard before: the nearby eerie and captivating howls of coyote. Since this was Spartanburg, South Carolina, and not Missoula, Montana, Lane set out to discover all he could about his new and unexpected neighbors.Coyote Settles the South is the story of his journey through the Southeast, where he visits coyote territories: swamps, nature preserves, old farm fields, suburbs, a tannery, and even city streets. On his travels he meets, interrogates, and observes those who interact with the animals—trappers, wildlife researchers, hunters, rattled pet owners, and even one devoted coyote hugger. Along the way, he encounters sensible, yet sometimes perplexing, insight concerning the migration into the Southeast of the American coyote, an animal that, in the end, surprises him with its intelligence, resilience, and amazing adaptability.

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This is a book about simplicity – not destitution, parsimoniousness or self-denial, but the restoration of wealth in the midst of an affluence in which we are starving the spirit. It is a book about the advantages of living a less cluttered, less stressful life than that which has become the norm in the overcrowded and manic-paced consuming nations. It is a book about having less and enjoying more, enjoying time to do the work you love, enjoying time to spend with your family, enjoying time to pursue creative projects, enjoying time for good eating, enjoying time just to be.

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While scouting sites for geology field trips, poet and naturalist John Lane encountered deep gullies created between the Civil War and the 1930s contributed to by his mother’s tenant farming family and their rural neighbors in Piedmont South Carolina. This brush with the poor farming practices of the past leads Lane into an exploration of his own family’s complicated history and of the larger environmental forces that have shaped the region where he chooses to live. With his sister as guide, Lane descends into the gully of his own childhood to uncover memories of a loving but alcoholic mother and a suicidal father. Back and forth, the narrative progresses from depictions of the land—particularly the overgrown and neglected places that hold stories and mysteries of the region—to Lane’s ever-deepening search.He wonders how he, a college professor and husband settled into middle-class life, has emerged from the chaos of his family’s past. Along the way, we meet heroic Depression-era geologists, fascinating colleagues, and troubled ancestors. Lane’s extraordinary ability to weave personal history together with explorations of the natural world will remind readers of the works of Loren Eiseley and Terry Tempest Williams.

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Why do writers love dogs? Not always for the same reasons all the rest of us do. Dorothea Benton Frank's dog Henry teaches her about self-righteous indignation every time she leaves on a book tour. Ron Rash learns to appreciate his misanthropic mutt Pepper after he bites his daughter's suitor. For Tommy Hays the dog is something not even a psychic can separate from the family. For some writers, such as Mary Alice Monroe, a Bernese Mountain dog arrives via Swiss Air. For George Singleton, they just wander into his Pickens County yard. The connection between dogs and humans in the geographic region known as South Carolina goes back over 10,000 years. There's even a wild dog in the Lowcountry known as the Carolina Dog, whose ancestors may have accompanied the first Americans across the Bering ice bridge. In Literary Dogs & Their South Carolina Writers twenty-five of the Palmetto State's most beloved authors introduce you to their most memorable dogs. There is Padgett Powell's "Ode to Spode," Josephine Humphreys' paean to a poodle, and Roger Pinckney’s Daufuskie Dog-ageddon. Meet Marshall Chapman's Impy, Mindy Friddle's Otto, Beth Webb Hart's Bo Peep, and more. From bird dogs to bad dogs, wild dogs to café dogs, get to know these canines and their literary companions.

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