These seven elegant personal essays explore the Chihuahuan Desert of northern Mexico and the southwestern United States. With eloquence, passion, and insight, the author describes and reflects on the relationship between the land, history, and people of this little-known, underappreciated desert region. Ever mindful of the difficulty of loving the desert, Susan Tweit introduces us to its unique attractions, telling the stories and histories of diverse subjects like the spadefoot toad, Organ Mountain evening primrose, extinct southwestern grizzly bear, Chihuahua Archaic culture, water, illegal aliens and the international border, tuberculosis sanitariums, and making a home in the desert. Sometimes with affection, sometimes in anger, always with passion, she reminds us that human cultures are part of a delicate ecological and biotic community. She cautions that destroying the desert is also diminishing human society.
My training is in field ecology, the study of the natural communities that make Earth a living planet. I once spent weeks in wild places studying grizzly bear habitat, wildfire patterns and sagebrush communities. I turned to writing when I realized I loved telling the stories behind the data more than collecting those data.
I'm the author of twelve books that explore the interrelationships that form what Aldo Leopold called the "community of the land." My work has appeared in magazines and newspapers from Audubon and Popular Mechanics to High Country News and the Los Angeles Times - and has been heard on the Martha Stewart Living Radio Network.
I've taught workshops at colleges, universities, and writing festivals from University of California-Riverside and Miami University of Ohio to Wofford College in South Carolina, as well as at home and online. Audiences as diverse as the International Xeriscape Conference, Collegiate Peaks Forum, Monte Vista Crane Festival, and the Walking Words Writing Festival have called my talks "inspiring" and "insightful." I coach individual writers, review manuscripts for university presses, and contribute to "The Perch," the blog of Audubon magazine, and Story Circle Network's "HerStories" as well as my own blog. My current teaching and speaking schedule is on my web site (susanjtweit.com).
I'm a Quaker, a step-mother, a daughter, a sister, an aunt, a mentor & mentee, and a friend. I belong to an informal network of writers and artists who speak for the land, and to Story Circle Network, Women Writing the West, ASLE, and Colorado Author's League.
I'm a passionate gardener: I grow my own vegetables, fruits and herbs, and also enjoy the challenge of native plant restoration and "wildscape" design. My designs have been featured in the Rocky Mountain News, Zone 4, and on garden blogs. Take a look at the slide shows on my web site (susanjtweit.com).
I live with my husband, sculptor Richard Cabe, in a house heated by the sun--the sun generates our electricity, too!--on a reclaimed industrial parcel in a high-desert valley tucked in the shadow of the tallest stretch of the Rocky Mountains.
