A trip to England in the early 1990s demonstrated to me that I was a Westerner to the bone. It was so wet and so green—and where was the bright, hot sun? Texas, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah…these places are my places.
After that vacation, I began to seek out western writers. They offered a perspective familiar and natural to me, and they had a special humor, as if they were telling jokes in my own language. They wrote in a way that included the landscape as a primary character. I was fortunate enough to discover Wallace Stegner, who wrote,
Some of what I learned was about myself…Now I began to understand who I was. I was a Westerner…I was used to a dry clarity and sharpness in the air…I was used to seeing a long way…I missed the color and smell of sagebrush, and the sight of bare ground.
In that famous New Yorker Magazine Cover entitled Why They Hate Us, the United States is presented with New York to the Hudson River larger than the rest of the country, and then the rest completely empty to the Pacific Ocean. Many who live outside the west think of it as “empty.” They don’t understand that it is filled with life and color and culture, but you have to, as Stegner said, “get over the color green.”
From an environmental standpoint, the west is very fragile. With so little rain, and a population growing so quickly—eight of the top 10 fastest growing states are in the west(1) —we can expect to see the western environment, climate change and water rights in the news from now on. It is critical that we think about, and have conversations about water, the environment and the issues unique to us.
One way to begin the process is to read Western writers. Because landscape is so much a part of their work, you can reflect on serious questions in enjoyable ways. Mystery, adventure, romance, yes, even cowboys and Indians—there are western writers doing wonderful work in every genre. Explore western writers and poets for the learning, for the mystery, for the beauty, for the fun, and to ponder questions that need pondering.
Suggested Reading:
Edward Abbey: Fiction, non-fiction, Desert Solitaire, The Monkey Wrench Gang. A radical environmentalist.
Mary Hunter Austin: Fiction, non-fiction, especially nature writing, poetry. Land of Little Rain, The Land of Journey’s Ending, Cactus Thorn. Wrote exquisitely during the 20s & 30s.
Richard Bradford: Fiction, Red Sky at Morning
Fabiola Cabeza de Baca: Non-fiction, fiction, cookbooks, The Good Life, We Fed Them Cactus. The west’s first female County Extension Agent/Author.
Tony Hillerman & Anne Hillerman, Mysteries with Navajo & Hopi characters, set in the four corners area, The Blessing Way, A Thief of Time, Coyote Waits and many more.
Barbara Kingsolver: Fiction, non-fiction, essays, poetry, Animal Dreams, Pigs in Heaven, High Tide in Tucson
Barry Lopez: Non-fiction, Field Notes, Crossing Open Ground. Some of the most beautiful description of the natural world you’ll ever read.
Mabel Dodge Luhan: Fiction, autobiography, Winter in Taos, Intimate Memories. Especially associated with the early Taos Art colony.
Janice Monk: Non-fiction, Co-Editor of The Desert is No Lady
Pat Mora: Poetry, non-fiction, fiction, children’s fiction, poetry, Adobe Odes, Agua Santa/Holy Water, Yum! MmMm! Que Rico!
John Nichols: Fiction, non-fiction, The Milagro Beanfield Wars, If Mountains Die
Vera Norwood: Non-fiction, author of Made from this Earth and Co-Editor of The Desert is No Lady.
Jake Page: Non-fiction, mysteries. He and his photographer/wife Susanne wrote the book Hopi, about one of the Southwest’s most interesting and mysterious tribes.
Wallace Stegner: Fiction, non-fiction, essays, Angle of Respose, Where the Bluebird Sings to the Lemonade Springs.
Websites:
Western Writers of America: http://westernwriters.org
Women Writing the West: http://www.womenwritingthewest.org/
High Plains Press: http://www.highplainspress.com
University of Arizona Press: http://www.uapress.arizona.edu
(1) U.S. Census Bureau, State by State Population estimates, 2012
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