The Georgia Review, Ecotone and Some Guy named Henry

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The Georgia Review seldom solicits work, but in 2008 we saw the chance to put together a special nature-writing feature comprising an essay, “Simplicity and Sanity,” by Scott Russell Sanders along with solicited responses to that work by four noted authors with a special interest in environmental issues. Drawing extensively from Walden, Sanders advocated a sustainable and environmentally sound life informed by Thoreau’s principles. Among the four other authors, the gently contrarian David Gessner mounted some opposition based, in part, on his own reading of Thoreau and simplicity.

In a recent editorial in Ecotone, of which Gessner is founding editor, he revisits his position from that Spring 2009 issue, providing us with an opportunity to present again, through these two influential writers, some ideas that have lost no currency or urgency in the last five years.

Here, with a link to Gessner’s new essay, we offer both original Sanders and Gessner pieces from Spring 2009.

D.C.

Scott Russell Sanders’ “Simplicity and Sanity”

David Gessner’s “Against Simplicity”

“On the Gallows with Henry David”

Buy the Spring 2009 issue and read the entire nature-writing feature including essays by Alison Hawthorne Deming, Reg Saner, and Lauret Edith Savoy. Additional work includes a folio of paintings by Terry Rowlett; fiction by David Huddle and Lori Ostlund; poetry by David Clewell, Alice Friman, Margaret Gibson, Maxine Kumin, and  others.