You are a human animal.

You are a very special breed,

or you are the only animal.

Who can think, who can reason, who can read.

Hello, and welcome to Bookworm.

This is Michael Silverblatt.

Today's show is the third in a series on writing nature and community.

We taped at the NPR studios in Washington, D.C. during the Watershed Conference, which was

sponsored by Robert Haas, who is the nation's poet laureate, the Orion Society, and the Library of Congress.

Today my guests are Scott Russell Sanders

and Robert Michael Pyle.

They write essays about the natural world.

When Robert Michael Pyle searches for Bigfoot,

he's really on the quest for some mythic purity,

a sense akin to childhood wonder. When Scott Russell

Sanders looks for a center, he's searching for truths and connections to hold together a broken

world. Because their voices may be new to you, here they are reading from their work. First, Scott

Russell Sanders, reading from the preface of

writing from the center, published by the University of Indiana Press. How can one live

a meaningful, gathered life in a world that seems broken and scattered? That question has haunted me

for as long as I can remember. Insofar as I have found

an answer it has to do with understanding my place in marriage, family, and community, my place

...