From "Homeland Security," by Susan Hanson

And yet, the truth is this: no less than the elbow bush growing wild outside my study window or the white-winged doves cooing at sunset, no less than the armadillo that roots in my garden at night or the Gulf fritillary that flits across the blooming flame acanthus--no less than any of these, I am suited to this place. It is my home, my source. We are a perfect fit.

Kurt Caswell, assistant professor of creative writing and literature in the Honors College at Texas Tech University, is the author of An Inside Passage, which won the 2008 River Teeth literary nonfiction book prize. His essays and stories have appeared in numerous magazines and journals, including Isotope, Janus Head, Matter, Ninth Letter, Northern Lights, Orion, and Potomac Review. He lives in Lubbock, Texas. Susan Leigh Tomlinson is director of the Natural History and Humanities degree program in the Honors College at Texas Tech University. Her work has appeared in Writing on the Wind: An Anthology of West Texas Women Writers. Diane Hueter Warner works in the Southwest Collection/Special Collections Library, where she is responsible for the James Sowell Family Collection in Literature, Community and the Natural World.
William E. Tydeman is deputy director for development and external relations in the Southwest Collection/Special Collections Library at Texas Tech University. Bill McKibben, author of many books on nature and the environment, is a scholar in environmental studies at Middlebury College and lives simply with his family in Vermont.