As the climate crisis simultaneously pinches water supplies and exacerbates flooding, some of the West’s most thoughtful journalists, poets, and writers remind us that water isn’t a natural resource to manage or a commodity to sell—nor do humans live out their lives at the scale of interstate river compacts, interbasin transfers, or 30-year projections. Rather, water is a force that’s beguiling and seductive—and a creature whose knowledge and will supersedes our own.
New Mexico journalist Laura Paskus has collected these voices in Water Bodies: Love Letters to the Most Abundant Substance on Earth and will join contributors Aaron Abeyta and Christi Bode for its San Luis Valley debut. In this anthology, the writers share intimate stories of rivers and snow patches, swimming holes and ephemeral streams. They also explore how waters shape our landscapes and our consciousness as they consider what becomes endangered when we lose sight of the power of water. In her praise of this collection, award-winning environmental and science journalist Michelle Nijhuis remarks, “In this beautiful anthology, writers, artists, and poets capture the wonder and heartbreak of learning from water in a dry land.”
Sponsored by the Salazar Rio Grande del Norte Center, the event begins at 6 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 30 in McDaniel Hall 101, on the Adams State University campus. Books for purchase and signing will be available through the Narrow Gauge Book Cooperative.
For more information, please contact Director of the Salazar Rio Grande del Norte Center Paul Formisano, Ph.D., at pformisano@adams.edu or 719-587-7111.
