Scott Russell Sanders

Sanders was born in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1945. His father came from a family of cotton farmers in Mississippi, his mother from an immigrant doctor’s family in Chicago. He spent his early childhood in Tennessee and his school years in Ohio. He studied physics and English at Brown University, graduating in 1967. With the aid of a Marshall Scholarship, he pursued graduate work at the Cambridge University, where he completed his Ph.D. in English in 1971. From 1971 until his retirement in 2009, he taught at Indiana University, from 1995 onward as Distinguished Professor of English.

Among his more than twenty books are novels, collections of stories, and works of personal nonfiction, including Staying Put, Writing from the Center, and Hunting for Hope. His latest book is A Conservationist Manifesto, his vision of a shift from a culture of consumption to a culture of caretaking.

Sanders’ writing examines the human place in nature, the pursuit of social justice, the relation between culture and geography, and the search for a spiritual path. He and his wife, Ruth, a biochemist, have reared two children in their hometown of Bloomington, in the hardwood hill country of Indiana’s White River Valley. Learn more at his website.

Marybeth Lorbiecki

Marybeth Lorbiecki has always loved history and topics that deal with how people interact with each other and with the natural world. With an M.A. in English and post graduate studies, she has seriously studied philosophy, theology, history, journalism, Dakota (Sioux) culture, multiculturalism, ecology, and international development.

She lived for a year in Colchester, Great Britain, in an international residence hall with thirteen other graduate women in varied professional fields from countries around the world (including South Africa, Jordan, India, Sri Lanka, Japan, Singapore, Mauritius, Greece, Morocco, and China). This allowed her to have intense, high level, friendly conversations over “tea” about religion, politics, government, racism, history, culture, environment, etc. These themes and passions come out in her works.

Marybeth grew up in St. Cloud, Minnesota, went to the College of St. Catherine and later Mankato State University and eventually the University of Essex as an International Rotarian Scholar. She wrote a biography of Aldo Leopold for younger readers called Fierce Green Fire, and has written many other delightful books for people of all ages. Learn more at her website.