John Muir, also known as "John of the Mountains" and "Father of the National Parks", was a Scottish-born American naturalist, author, environmental philosopher, botanist, zoologist, glaciologist, and early advocate for the preservation of wilderness in the United States.
Ernest Bloch was a Swiss-born American composer. Bloch was a preeminent artist in his day, and left a lasting legacy. He is recognized as one of the greatest Swiss composers in history. Several of his most notable compositions reflect his Jewish heritage. As well as producing musical scores, Bloch had an academic career that culminated in his recognition as Professor Emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley in 1952.
Joseph Wood Krutch was an American author, critic, and naturalist who wrote nature books on the American Southwest. He is known for developing a pantheistic philosophy.
Robert Michael Pyle is an American lepidopterist, writer, teacher, and founder of the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation. Much of his life story is told in the 2020 feature film The Dark Divide, where Pyle is played by David Cross.
Nature writing is nonfiction or fiction prose about the natural environment. It often draws heavily from scientific information and facts while also incorporating philosophical reflection upon various aspects of nature. Works are frequently written in the first person and include personal observations.
Gary Paul Nabhan is an agricultural ecologist, Ethnobotanist, Ecumenical Franciscan Brother, and author whose work has focused primarily on the plants and cultures of the desert Southwest. He is considered a pioneer in the local food movement and the heirloom seed saving movement.
Charles Clyde Bowden was an American non-fiction author, journalist and essayist based in Las Cruces, New Mexico. He was best known for his work documenting violence on the Mexico-United States border, especially in and around Ciudad Juarez.
My Side of the Mountain is a middle-grade adventure novel written and illustrated by American writer Jean George published by E. P. Dutton in 1959. It features a boy who learns courage, independence, and the need for companionship while attempting to live in the Catskill Mountains of New York State. In 1960, it was one of three Newbery Medal Honor Books (runners-up) and in 1969 it was loosely adapted as a film of the same name. George continued the story in print, decades later.
The Baboquivari Peak Wilderness or La Bestia is a 2,065-acre (8 km2) wilderness area in the U.S. state of Arizona. It is located in the Baboquivari Mountains 50 miles (80 km) southwest of Tucson, Arizona. It is administered by the Bureau of Land Management. The United States Congress designated the Baboquivari Peak Wilderness in 1990. It is the smallest such designated wilderness in the state of Arizona. Today, the 2,900,000-acre (12,000 km2) Tohono O'odham Nation lies to the west. Baboquivari Peak's elevation is 7,730 feet. It is a popular site for many climbers, tourists and other visitors to Arizona and can be seen in the distance from the Kitt Peak National Observatory.
Juan Felipe Herrera is an American poet, performer, writer, toonist, teacher, and activist. Herrera was the 21st United States Poet Laureate from 2015 to 2017. He is a major figure in the literary field of Chicano poetry.
Richard Shelton was an American writer, poet and emeritus Regents Professor of English at the University of Arizona.
Ken Kuhlken was born and grew up in San Diego, played semi-pro baseball in Tijuana, and attended San Diego State University, first as a philosophy and then as an English major. After college, he wrote, played guitar and sang in a rock and blues band, and taught high school, before relocating to attend the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop.
David Rains Wallace is an American writer who has published more than twenty books on conservation and natural history, including The Monkey's Bridge and The Klamath Knot. He has written articles for the National Geographic Society, The Nature Conservancy, the Sierra Club, and other groups. Wallace's work also has appeared in Harper's Magazine, The New York Times, Sierra, Wilderness and other periodicals.
Debra Bloomfield is an American photographer. She has photographed extensively in Mexico, the American Southwest, Alaska, and California, and has taught photography in the San Francisco Bay Area for over 30 years.
Alison Hawthorne Deming is an American poet, essayist and teacher, former Agnese Nelms Haury Chair in Environment and Social Justice and currently Regents Professor Emerita in Creative Writing at the University of Arizona. She received a 2015 Guggenheim Fellowship.
The United States Penitentiary, Tucson is a high-security United States federal prison for male inmates in Arizona. It is part of the Tucson Federal Correctional Complex and is operated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons, a division of the United States Department of Justice. The facility also has a satellite prison camp for minimum-security male offenders.
Soul on Ice is a memoir and collection of essays by Eldridge Cleaver. Originally written in Folsom State Prison in 1965, and published three years later in 1968, it is Cleaver's best known writing and remains a seminal work in African-American literature. The treatises were first printed in the nationally-circulated monthly Ramparts and became widely read for their illustration and commentary on Black America. Throughout his narrative, Cleaver describes not only his transformation from a marijuana dealer and serial rapist into a convinced Malcolm X adherent and Marxist revolutionary, but also his analogous relationship to the politics of America.
Mission San Cosme y Damián de Tucsón, originally known as Mission San Agustín del Tucson, was a Spanish mission located in present-day Tucson, Pima County, Arizona. It was established in 1692 by Jesuit missionary Eusebio Francisco Kino as a visita, or "visiting chapel", of the nearby Mission San Xavier del Bac. Today, almost nothing remains of the original complex.
Clara Lee Tanner was an American anthropologist, editor and art historian. She is known for studies of the arts and crafts of American Indians of the Southwest.
Eve Ball was an American historian of the American West and a teacher. She is most well known for her oral research and books on Apache Native American tribes, particularly Indeh: An Apache Odessey. In 1981, she received the Saddleman's Award, "the Oscar of western writing" for Indeh: An Apache Odessey.
