Satellite - by Simmons Buntin (Paperback)

About the Book

"In Satellite, Simmons Buntin explores the idea of belonging--in place, in time, in family, in community--in sixteen essays written over a span of nearly two decades. The essays range throughout the desert Southwest, on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border, and as far afield as Mount Saint Helens, eastern Montana, northern Vermont, and Sweden. Buntin explores the challenges and beauty of raising a family and creating more sustainable communities in the diverse cultural and ecological landscape that is the Sonoran Desert-and, more broadly, in any American landscape. He asks the essential questions of our time, including, How broadly should community be defined? How do we realize heritage in an age of globalization? How do we find hope and renewal following personal and landscape trauma? What forms might grace take, and how can parents pass that on to their children?"-- Provided by publisher.

Book Synopsis

Essays on raising a family and creating sustainable communities in diverse cultural and ecological landscapes

Review Quotes

"Unfailingly engaging and lyrical. A beautifully written love letter to the intertwining tendrils of nature and community, Satellite takes its rightful place among the finest work by outstanding Sonoran Desert writers including Gary Paul Nabhan, Alison Hawthorne Deming, and Alberto Ríiacute;os."
- Michael P. Branch, author of On the Trail of the Jackalope: How a Legend Captured the World's Imagination and Helped Us Cure Cancer

"A beautiful book grounded in family, community, and nature to take hope and inspiration from."
-- Alison Hawthorne Deming, author of Blue Flax and Yellow Mustard Flower

"A rich and warm and love-filled meditation . . . Generosity of spirit and constancy of attention imbue every one of the essays in this splendid, shining collection."
-- Elizabeth Dodd, author of Horizon's Lens: My Time on the Turning World

"From the direct sensual pleasures of photographing wildflowers and drinking beer to the more complex pleasures and pains of fatherhood, fraught with dangers from rattlesnakes to mood swings, this beautiful and deep collection of essays covers fascinating terrain. . . . A moving distillation of a lifetime of work and thought."
-- David Gessner, author of All the Wild That Remains: Edward Abbey, Wallace Stegner, and the American West

"Unlike so many of his predecessors, Buntin is never torn between loving the wilderness and loving his family, between wanting to explore with his camera and wanting to explore with his young daughters. The love for one increases the love for the other in a sort of whirlwind of curiosity, generosity, and deep feeling. These are thoughtful, detail-rich essays that are deeply engaged with the natural world and with humans as part of the menagerie. They model in the best way what I have lately heard called tonic masculinity and manage to have a great deal of fun in the process."
-- Pam Houston, author of Deep Creek: Finding Hope in the High Country

"Satellite links us lyrically to expanses of wildness, recollections of familial experience, . . . orbiting an ever revolving heartfelt artistry that takes the reader on a journey toward reverence, respect, and greater kinship with nature and humanity . . . An act of love."
-- J. Drew Lanham, author of The Home Place: Memoirs of a Colored Man's Love Affair with Nature

"Whether admiring the Great Orion Nebula with his daughter, chasing a rare 'explosion' of desert wildflowers along the U.S.-Mexico border, asserting craft beers as an expression of place, or meditating on individual and communal heritage, Buntin invites us to rediscover the extraordinary in the seemingly simple intimacies--with people and places, near and far. Wherever you call home, Satellite is a guide to belonging and cherishing 'the sheer abundance of it all.' "
-- John T. Price, author of All Is Leaf: Essays and Transformations

"Even as naturalist and writer Simmons Buntin introduces his daughters to nature, he must come to terms with his place in the world . . . yielding to beauty, building wonder, and sketching out hope for our children. Here is a field guide to a father's love."
-- Janisse Ray, Craft and Current: A Manual for Magical Writing

"The best personal essays offer insights into the world as well as the writer. Simmons Buntin manages that fine balance in this collection, which ranges geographically across the American West, from his Tucson backyard to the slopes of Mount Saint Helens, and ranges autobiographically from memories of growing up as the son of a troubled mother to scenes of delight and anguish as the father of two young daughters. Readers will find him an illuminating g

About the Author

Simmons Buntin is the author of the poetry collections Riverfall and Bloom; the co-author, with Ken Pirie, of Unsprawl: Remixing Spaces as Places; and the co-editor, with Elizabeth Dodd and Derek Sheffield, of Dear America: Letters of Hope, Habitat, Defiance, and Democracy. He is the editor-in-chief of Terrain.org, the president and director of the board of Terrain Publishing, and the director of marketing and communications at the University of Arizona. He lives in Tucson.