Alison Hawthorne Deming is pleased to announce that her new book, Zoologies: On Animals and the Human Spirit, will be published by Milkweed Editions in 2014.
Alison Deming reads a special Halloween feature of “Baba Yaga” for Arizona Spotlight with Mark McLemore.
Alison Hawthorne Deming pens guest editorial for Terrain.org
A winter storms into its galactic arms. New York City took a major hit. I happened at the time to be on Grand Manan Island watching the Bay of Fundy churn, the surf rake rock against rock on the Castalia shore in front of my home.
I’d come to my family’s retreat in Atlantic Canada for a much needed week of writing. I was reading an essay by one of my Tucson students about gang life in the city. “If he was going to slang,” she wrote, “he’d better get strapped up.” A drug dealer was out for justice over the mismeasure of his goods. He was heading for a club, armed and righteous. This is not fiction. This is the daily life of one student, a woman who comes to class wearing a white wife-beater that showcases her spectacular tattoos. She has a smile as warm as Oprah. Sometimes there’s a sheepish quality to it, as if she’s asking, “What am I doing in this movie?” She knows how to use a Glock. “You’re gonna need it,” her boyfriend said, looking after her. She’s lost so many friends to the street, she’s afraid to count them. Still, she feels pride in belonging, hanging with a guy who wants to put Tucson on the map, wants to make it as badass as L.A. or New York.
Oregon’s Blue River.
Photo by W.F. Gates.
Alison Hawthorne Deming participates in the Blue River Quorum, which has created the Blue River Declaration: An Ethic of the Earth.
The Eye of the Storm: Re-imagining Ethics for a Changing Planet is a thinking community that will include Alison Deming, Barry Lopez, Kathleen Dean Moore, and many others at the long-term ecological restoration site September 29 – October 2.
Alison Deming, a member of the Orion Board of Directors, has been appointed Chairperson of the nonprofit organization that publishes the acclaimed Orion magazine.
Alison Hawthorne Deming read her poem “The Toothbrush” at the beautiful tribute to poet Steve Orlen (1942-2010), a fellow professor at the University of Arizona. The tribute took place on January 22 at the University of Arizona Poetry Center.
Journey of the Universe is developed by Mary Evelyn Tucker and Brian Swimme
The goal of the Journey of the Universe is to tell the story of cosmic and Earth evolution drawing on the latest scientific knowledge. It aims to inspire a new and closer relationship with Earth in a period of growing environmental and social crisis. The film evokes a shared sense of wonder as we find ourselves in the presence of the immense, complex, and self-organizing creativity of the universe and Earth. The film was inspired by the New Story of Thomas Berry, a cultural historian who wrote The Universe Story with Brian Swimme.
Alison Hawthorne Deming’s essay, “Culture, Biology, and Emergence,” part of the Georgia Review’s Spring 2009 issue feature entitled “Culture and the Environment—A Conversation in Five Essays,” was awarded the Best Essay Gold award from Magazine Association of the Southeast’s annual GAMMA Awards competition.
Five of Alison’s poems have been featured on Garrison Keillor’s The Writer’s Almanac.