Christian McEwen

World Enough & Time focuses on the positive effect of deliberately simple living on creativity. McEwen juxtaposes religious traditions of both the East and West, and intertwines words of wisdom from writers ranging from Montaigne to Ralph Waldo Emerson and from Virginia Woolf to Jack Kerouac to Adrienne Rich, artists and musicians from John Ruskin to Meredith Monk, and myriad psychologists, linguists, philosophers, and scholars. In so doing, she creates a unique combination of history, spirituality, and practical advice about how to incorporate slowness and its benefits into everyday living. In short, it's what she calls “inspiration for the literate reader.” According to McEwen, the nonstop emphasis on productivity that is so prevalent in our society is counterproductive for anyone wanting to be creative. She describes a typical response to the question, “How are you?”, regardless of age, race, class, and gender: “I'm just so busy. Really, I'm crazy-busy,” branding it as a mark of honor. Yet, she continues, “When people are asked where they get their best ideas, again and again they answer, 'In the bathroom,' 'On vacation,' 'Doing nothing.' They begin, in other words, by 'simply being.'” If we slow down, McEwen asserts, we can appreciate Henry David Thoreau's comment that, “A broad margin of leisure is as beautiful in a man's life as in a book.” She adds, “Thoreau knew too, what contemporary thinkers are just beginning to understand – that the human mind is not some isolated little manikin inside our heads; rather it is fed and nourished by every sight and smell and sound that we encounter, from the movement of the clouds to the shrill of the birds outside our morning window.” World Enough & Time extols the benefits of observation, conversation, walking, pausing and dreaming within a literary and artistic framework spanning centuries. Among the lessons learned from the great minds are: “It is in our idleness, in our dreams, that the submerged truth sometimes comes to the top.” —Virginia Woolf “Beware the barrenness of a busy life.” —Socrates “Seek society. Keep your friendships in repair. Answer your letters. Meet good-will half way.” —Ralph Waldo Emerson “We shared our ideas like sweaters, with easy exchange and lack of ownership” —Ann Patchett on her friendship with Lucy Greeley.“Creative work needs solitude. It needs concentration, without interruptions. It needs the whole sky to fly in, and no eye watching till it comes to that certainty which it aspires to…” —Mary Oliver “Art has something to do with the achievement of stillness in the midst of chaos…” —Saul Bellow World Enough & Time is the result of thirty years of thinking, teaching and writing in the midst of a busy world. Turning to stories of the writers and artists she has studied all these years, McEwen finds that “each anecdote is its own parable of truth.”

On Creativity and Slowing Down

World Enough & Time

"Collection of contemporary lesbian poetry by more than 70 poets from both sides of the Atlantic"--Back cover.

Contemporary Lesbian Poetry

Naming the Waves

Mark Statman

The Alphabet of the Trees is a superb collection of essays about teaching all aspects and forms of nature writing, including poems, field journals, fiction, and nonfiction. It is a practical handbook; an introduction to nature writing, nature poetry, and fieldwork; and a guide to some basic strategies for teachers at all levels. The distinguished contributors to this volume include nature writers, poets, fiction writers, and educators: Eleanor J. Bader, Barbara Bash, Joseph Bruchac, Jordan Clary, Jack Collom, Carolyn Duckworth, Margot Fortunato Galt, Barry Gilmore, Cynde Gregory, Penny Harter, Terry Hermsen, William J. Higginson, Susan Karwoska, Clare Walker Leslie, Christian McEwen, Suzanne Rogier Marshall, Holly Masturzo, Michael Morse, Mary Oliver, Carol F. Peck, Sarah Juniper Rabkin, Charles E. Roth, Matthew Sharpe, Gary Snyder, Kim Stafford, Sam Swope, John Tallmadge, Mary Edwards Wertsch, Janine Pommy Vega, and Ann Zwinger. Their essays present inspiring models from Tu Fu, Wallace Stevens, William Carlos Williams, Denise Levertov, Matsuo Basho, Muriel Rukeyser, Henry David Thoreau, Rainer Maria Rilke, Pablo Neruda, and many others. The Alphabet of the Trees also includes an extensive bibliography and resource section.

A Guide to Nature Writing

The Alphabet of the Trees

Louisa May Alcott's energetic, ambitious, and androgynous Jo March has inspired generations of tomboys. But at the close of Little Women even Jo's valiant tomboy spirit has been subordinated to her role as wife and mother. For Jo's Girls, editor Christian McEwen has assembled a collection of fiction and memoir that looks at what it has really meant to be a tomboy from the nineteenth century to the present-and at what the refusal to turn into a "young lady" has implied. Contributors include: Toni Cade Bambara, Willa Cather, Sandra Cisneros, Colette, Simone de Beauvoir, Alexis De Veaux, Annie Dillard, Nadezhda Durova, Leslie Feinberg, Emily Hiestand, Maria Hinojosa, Teresa Jordan, Jamaica Kincaid, Maxine Hong Kingston, Anne LaBastille, Ursula K. Le Guin, Bia Lowe, Carson McCullers, Susan Moon, Toni Morrison, Alice Munro, Grace Paley, Minnie Bruce Pratt, Rose Tremain, Frances Willard, Opal Whiteley, Virginia Woolf

Christian McEwen

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