Friends,
These are hard, hot days in many ways. Here in the Upstate of South Carolina, wedged between the Blue Ridge northward and fractured Piedmont rolling south towards the coast, the thermometer rises to inhospitable. No matter where one stands terrain-wise, the summer sun’s relentless rays seem ever intent on beating us into submission. My sweat, sweats with little relief to be had except in the confines of air-conditioned consumption. I seek wildness always as respite, but it’s hard to breathe without gills in this heavy air. Somehow, I manage to do so, picking spots in the early morning or evening—or when the clouds mercifully drift over. The birds sing feebly late season, and the annual cicadas, whose Biblical pestilence never quite erupted here, drone on in unfulfilled, less-than-plague proportions.
It is the nature of things I tend to in my wandering and writing. But then these days there’s more heat than solar being brought to bear and so I have to write towards political plight as much as I write to painted buntings. Our identities matter as much as the birds we identify with, and so I must write to that, too.
I’m proudest to have been a part of Terrain.org for a number of years. Terrain.org has never shied away from the tough topics, has never edited me away from who I truly am as an intensely rural Black southerner who believes better can come through a reverence for nature, and vigilance pressing justice and equality among us all. Our words matter to make things better.
These days, as various entities decide to pull back on efforts to include and diversify, to silence truths they find inconvenient or downright peddle lies to wrest away human choice and rights, supporting a literary venue that remains true to truth and beauty and the bittersweetness of being human in these times is a kind of protest to me. It is also respite of kindred spirits who gather word by word, to tell it all, as we see it.
I am happiest to support Terrain.org and hope that you will too.
J. Drew Lanham
Author, MacArthur Fellow, and Wildlife Biologist
