The Land's Wild Music is a writer's road trip through the home terrains and the prose and poetry of four great North American writers—Barry Lopez, Peter Matthiessen,Terry Tempest Williams, and James Galvin. More than that, it is a sustained lyric reflection on the nature of landscape and its power to shape the lives and syntax of men and women. This deeply thoughtful book by an accomplished lyric essayist is animated by the writer's encounters with these four literary artists, by his generous critical readings of their work, and by his journeys through the landscapes that have shaped them—the Cascades, Long Island, the Colorado Plateau, and the high prairies of the Rocky Mountains.

Personal and poetic, intellectually original, and beautifully articulated, The Land's Wild Music is a striking new work in the literature of place and a bold contribution to literary and ecological thought.

Praise for the Book

“For those interested in the literature of place—especially young writers—The Land's Wild Music is an essential text, a sort of guide to the governance of our writing lives.”
—Terrain.org

“Tredinnick's book is filled with riveting ideas about story and place, is composed in sometimes startlingly beautiful prose, and has the glorious prime virtue of sending readers straight toward some of the most remarkable books in modern American history.”
—Brian Doyle, The Oregonian

“A rich and compelling narrative that presents a powerful set of ideas about the ethical, artistic, and spiritual implications of writing about a place.”
—John Tallmadge, author of The Cincinnati Arch: Learning from Nature in the City

“Timely, original, and beautifully written.”
—John Elder, author of Reading the Mountains of Home

About the Author

Mark Tredinnick is an essayist, poet, and writing teacher. He is the editor of A Place on Earth: An Anthology of Nature Writing from Australia and North America and author of the forthcoming landscape memoir, The Blue Plateau. His writing has appeared in magazines and journals in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Winner of the 2005 Wildcare Tasmania Nature Writing Prize, Tredinnick lives in Katoomba and Lavender Bay, New South Wales.