Such News of the Land : Us Women Nature Writers

Such News of the Land shows how women nature writers used nature essays, regional sketches, fiction, and science to enlarge the audience for whom nature mattered. Approaching the subject from literary criticism, history, and anthropology, 19 contributors and the editors make a case for raising our appreciation of the role women nature writers have played in the creation of an American literature and an American identity. This path-breaking collection expands the definition of the genre itself. Embracing two centuries and treating a variety of regions and cultures, these essays discuss traditional nature writers such as Susan Fenimore Cooper, Mary Austin, Gene Stratton Porter, and Annie Dillard, as well as the contributions of authors ranging from Zora Neale Hurston, Gloria Anzaldua, and Leslie Marmon Silko, to Willa Cather and Sarah Orne Jewett. Unconventional sources such as market bulletins or women's gardens stand alongside germinal texts such as Marjory Stoneman Douglas's The Everglades: River of Grass as source material for examining the ways women have shaped our view of the land.