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Pamela Biery

~ communication, pr, writing

Pamela Biery

Category Archives: literature

Biodiversity, history, geology and a fine array of art

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Posted by Pamela Biery in Book Reviews, environment, Green, literature, sustainability, Uncategorized

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forests of california, obi kaufmann

The Forests of California, by Obi Kaufmann, released in September 2020 by Heyday Books

Obi Kaufmann, who brought us The California Field Atlas (#1 San Francisco Chronicle Best Seller) presents another major work, The Forests of California. This is the third of six books in Kaufmann’s planned series exploring the state’s diverse environment and is the first of his planned “California Lands” trilogy.

An atlas is a collection of maps, illustrations and text. A field atlas is designed to be used in the ‘field’ as an ongoing resource, and Kaufmann gives us something rich, distinctive and fascinating. Dive in wherever you like to find a page that engages and keeps you turning more pages, or if you prefer, stop to learn more about a specific forest or tree in California. This book is not just a reference tool, but could be seen as an invitation to think differently about habitat, vegitative alliances and the hope we can hold through better understanding of our relationship to place.

Read the full review on Yubanet.com

Listen to the interview on LitQuake

Note: Perhaps the most important book I’ve read this year…full of new ways to think, explore, understand, and deepen relationships with the natural world.

Why We Write

18 Thursday Oct 2018

Posted by Pamela Biery in environment, literature, travel, Uncategorized, writers and writing

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California writing, desert writing, edward abbey, Mary Oliver, writing

There are so many reasons to write and each writer seems to have a handful that they return to. For me, much of writing is about capturing the moment—sights, scents, emotions and thoughts.

I like Mary Oliver’s short directive, which could be for writing as well as living:

Instructions for living a life.
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.

This last week I found a scrap of writing from some years back and was reminded not only of the experience, but why I write.

My Summer with Edward
Began June 2009, completed by accident September 2018

I read out loud to Olivia in hushed tones from Edward Abbey, so as not to wake Ernie, asleep in the next room. We stood, leaning against the wall on cool white tile in the Albuquerque Hyatt bathroom late at night. I crouched and read aloud the opening of Edward Abbey’s Desert Solitaire:

The wind will not stop. Gusts of sand swirl before me, stinging my face. But there is still too much to see and marvel at, the world very much alive in the bright light and wind, exultant with the fever of spring, the delight of the morning. Strolling on, it seems to me that the strangeness and wonder of existence are emphasized here, in the desert, by the comparative sparsity of the flora and fauna: life not crowded upon life as in other places but scattered abroad in sparseness and simplicity, with a generous gift of space for each herb and bush and tree, each stem of grass, so that the living organism stands out bold and brave and vivid against the lifeless sand and barren rock. The extreme individuation of desert life forms. Love flowers best in openness.

This quote seemed as if it was written to describe our day, walking through intense stillness, taking in petroglyphs among sage and tumbleweed. The grey quiet of what seemed a barren land came to life in surreal plant shapes and patches of brilliant color as our eyes adapted to the desert’s subtle grey tones. It was June, and a rain two days before our arrival had brought out a spectacular display of cactus flowers. For me it was the beginning of a summer with Edward Abbey’s Desert Solitaire in my daypack, sallying forth to the south and west, to rivers and mountains. Words, reflections, page corners damp from the verdescent Yuba River, worn from the edges of Granite Chief boulders, used as temporary reading tables; this book covered the miles with me, changed me, opened my heart wider to the blue skies.

I’m not sure how I lived so long with ever finding Edward Abbey, whose sensibility of the outdoors so suits my own spirit. A great lover of freedom, a questioning anti-government, somewhat misanthropic fellow and a writer of keen ability; Abbey proved a fine trail mate thoroughly able to inhabit whatever rock I perched on while reading an essay.

The first time I encountered Abbey was in Outside magazine’s collection of essays. His piece The Last Porkchop remains in my mind as the most eloquent expression of what is at stake in America’s wilds and the forces that are taunting the wild into oblivion.

I realize today, I must re-read this essay, as we are much further down a dark road than in years past.

Still, it always good to be outdoors, to seek the wild and to remember dear friends and Edward Abbey.

 

A Tone Poem for California

28 Sunday Aug 2011

Posted by Pamela Biery in literature, Uncategorized, writers and writing

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Copper Canyon Press, Heyday Books, literature, Malcom Margolin

 New California Writing 2011

Edited by Gayle Wattawa

Paperback, 320 pages, June 2011

Reviewed by Pamela Biery

Editor Gayle Wattawa sounds a note full of depth, resonance and diversity in “New California Writing” Heyday Books new anthology series. From Michael Chabon’s musings on everyday family life in “Manhood for Amateurs” or Rebecca Solnit’s enlightening description of bluebelly lizards, on through to the very last page, there is much to ponder, embrace and recognize as the great golden State of California.

Think of this book as a snapshot of a single moment, captured simultaneously by distant cousins who have never met—viewing these vignettes shifts the reader’s perspective, informing subtly, as the best writing does.

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Ann Patchett resists the flirtation of a new idea….

21 Tuesday Jun 2011

Posted by Pamela Biery in literature, writers and writing

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Ann Patchett, State of Wonder, Town Hall Seattle

…which invariably arrives as she is just coming to critical point in a book half completed. These ideas appear coy and bright, bringing out the charm of a new flame, urging her to dump the tired out book she has been working on for oh however long. But Ann Patchett resists, finishes work in progress and lets this new idea languish for a bit, perhaps to see if it is really worthy. Such was the case with State of Wonder.

State of Wonder is not and never will be Bel Canto,  perhaps her watermark novel. But Ann Patchett is still Ann Patchett and reads a spell-binding, evocative tale from State of Wonder leaving the audience amazed at the real-life adventures Patchett encountered while in the Amazon doing research for this latest novel. After all, few among us know the stench of an attacking Anaconda or the sounds of a jungle river, less still where the machete is found on a river guide’s boat.
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