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This Impermanent Earth

By Douglas Carlson & Soham Patel &
This Impermanent Earth by Douglas Carlson & Soham Patel &  digital book - Fable

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Publisher Description

With its thirty-three essays, This Impermanent Earth charts the course of the American literary response to the twentieth century’s accumulation of environmental deprivations. Arranged chronologically from 1974 to the present, the works have been culled from The Georgia Review, long considered an important venue for nonfiction among literary magazines published in the United States.

The essays range in subject matter from twentieth-century examples of what was then called nature writing, through writing after 2000 that gradually redefines the environment in increasingly human terms, to a more inclusive expansion that considers all human surroundings as material for environmental inquiry. Likewise, the approaches range from formal essays to prose works that reflect the movement toward innovation and experimentation. The collection builds as it progresses; later essays grow from earlier ones.

This Impermanent Earth is more than a historical survey of a literary form, however. The Georgia Review’s talented writers and its longtime commitment to the art of editorial practice have produced a collection that is, as one reviewer put it, “incredibly moving, varied, and inspiring.” It is a book that will be as at home in the reading room as in the classroom.

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About Douglas Carlson

DOUGLAS CARLSON is associate prose editor of The Georgia Review. He is the author of Roger Tony Peterson: A Biography, and his work has been anthologized in At the Edge and When We Say We're Home. He has served on the Faculty Editorial Board for UGA Press and has also served advisory roles for Ascent magazine, White Wine Press, and New Rivers Press.

Soham Patel

SOHAM PATEL is associate poetry editor at The Georgia Review. She is the author of four chapbooks of poetry including and nevermind the storm and New Weather Drafts and the full-length collections to afar from afar and ever really hear it, winner of the 2017 Subito Prize. Patel is a Kundiman fellow and a poetry editor at Fence.

Jerome F. Bump

Susan Cerulean

SUSAN CERULEAN is a writer, naturalist, and advocate based in Tallahassee, Florida. She has written and edited many books, including gold medal Florida Book Award winner Coming to Pass: Florida’s Coastal Islands in a Gulf of Change, and her nature memoir, Tracking Desire: A Journey after Swallow-tailed Kites (both Georgia), that was named and Editor’s Choice title by Audubon magazine. I Have Been Assigned the Single Bird: A Daughter’s Memoir (also Georgia) is her most recent work.

Camille T. Dungy

CAMILLE T. DUNGY is the University Distinguished Professor in English at Colorado State University. She is the author of four collections of poetry, including Trophic Cascade, winner of the Colorado Book Award. Dungy currently serves as the poetry editor for Orion magazine. She is also coeditor of From the Fishouse, and assistant editor of Gathering Ground: A Reader Celebrating Cave Canem’s First Decade. Dungy is the recipient of honors including the 2021 American Academy of Poets Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts in both poetry and prose. Her poems and essays have been published in Best American Poetry, The 100 Best African American Poems, more than forty other anthologies, and over one hundred print and online journals.

Raquel Gutiérrez

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Emily Hiestand

J. D. Ho

Barbara Hurd

BARBARA HURD is the author of Stirring the Mud, Entering the Stone, Walking the Wrack Line, and a collection of poetry, The Singer’s Temple. Her work has appeared in Best American Essays, the Yale Review, the Georgia Review, Orion, and Audubon. She is the recipient of an NEA Fellowship for Creative Nonfiction, winner of the Sierra Club’s National Nature Writing Award, five PushcartPrizes, five Maryland State Arts Council Awards, and a 2015 Guggenheim Fellowship. She teaches in the MFA in Writing Program at the Vermont College of Fine Arts.

Brenda Iijima

BRENDA IIJIMA is a poet, novelist, playwright, choreographer, and visual artist. She is the author of nine books of poetry. Her involvements occur at the intersections and mutations of genre, mode, receptivity, and field of study. Her current work engages submerged and occluded histories, other-than-human modes of expression, and telluric awareness in all forms. Iijima is the founding editor-publisher of Portable Press @ Yo-Yo Labs. She lives in Brooklyn.

James Kilgo

JAMES KILGO (1941-2002) wrote extensively about nature, the landscape, and our connections to them. His books include Daughter of My People, Deep Enough for Ivorybills, and Colors of Africa (all Georgia).

Sydney Lea

SYDNEY LEA is a poet, essayist, and novelist whose many works include Young of the Year and A Little Wildness: Some Notes on Rambling. He was founder and long time editor of the New England Review. In 2011 he was named the Poet Laureate of Vermont.

Andrew Menard

ANDREW MENARD is a writer, artist, and critic, and author of Sight Unseen: How Frémont’s First Expedition Changed the American Landscape. He lives in New York City.

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Jason Molesky

Gary P. Nabhan

Nicholas Neely

Robin Patten

Julie A. Riddle

Reg Saner

Lauret Savoy

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Dawne Shand

Sean P. Smith

Tyrone Williams

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