Month: February 2023

Why Is a Jaguar a Character in Threshold?

Jaguar Track

To tell a story set in the Sonoran Desert, which occurs in only one region of the world, we must include the iconic species of plants and animals who are its defining features. Their presence maintains the balance of life and contributes to the great beauty of this desert landscape. The saguaro cactus is its signature plant life, who some believe evolved from a tree in the tropical rainforest that dried to a savannah and then to a desert over thousands of years.

Saguaro in Tucson Arizona after a rainstorm. Its long shallow roots absorb water efficiently after a heavy monsoon rain.

Threshold tells the stories of many desert plants, trees, insects, invertebrates, and mammals. One strategy for conserving water is to be active at dusk and dawn. These animals are said to be crepuscular (as contrasted with nocturnal). The jaguar is thus, and also nocturnal. Panthera onca is the third largest of the cat family with a bite more powerful than the tiger or lion.

I named the jaguar character in Threshold. Duma. With the risk of personifying a wild animal by human standards, I tried to stay strictly to the known biology, behavior, and observed lifeways of jaguars in the Sonoran Desert. In my story Duma obtains his name from first graders in Phoenix. You’ll have to read the book to learn how that came about. Below you see another feature of this remarkable character: he is an albino, a White Cat, causing local observers to refer to him as the “ghost cat” as he moves about the fields and pastures of farms and ranches, terrifying livestock and infuriating their caretakers.

Duma is my writer’s device to represent wild nature and the impact of a changing climate and human activity on his lifeways. His story also allowed me to describe the labyrinth of environmental and conservation laws on both sides of the border and how Duma becomes, literally, emmeshed in them. He crosses the U.S. -Mexico border while roaming his natural range which stretches from Sonora in Mexico north to Phoenix in Arizona. Duma is caught up in the social and political turmoil.

It is important to me to consider the lives of other species who share our habitats in what is a human centric world.

Go to Terrain.org to read or listen to more of Threshold

Why Should You Read Threshold?

A Story about a Community In the Throes of Climate Change

Threshold was published in 2016. Seven years later the characters and the action are recognizable as the Southwest has continued to heat up.

Drought and worries about growing food, sustaining adequate water supply, a dying Colorado River from overuse, and threat of losing hydropower all are present day challenges.

Threshold is written with youth in mind. Three teenage characters in different circumstances, and their families, navigate climate change differently, but all are thrown into finding sustaining ways to live and work.

Teachers, Middle School to High School young adults, parents, youth leaders, book clubs, and environmental conservation organizations will find Threshold interesting and useful. Stop by my table on March 2, Sunday in the Young Adult tables in the Indie Author Pavilion at the Tucson Festival of Books.

For teachers, see the page titled Threshold the Novel on this blog to download a standards articulation for Threshold.

Church groups and book clubs will find this a thought provoking novel to discuss.

Hear a chapter read by the author on Terrain.org.

Remembering Origins

More conversation with Amitav Ghosh, author of The Nutmeg’s Curse on Emergence Magazine brings up similar themes incorporated into Threshold, a novel about climate change in the Southwest. In it, I layered the rich cultural endowment of the Tucson area, with ancient Indigenous and current day Native Nations wisdom, and Mexican American land and agricultural practices that have and continue to shape the local zeitgeist. But, like most communities in the Southwest, capitalistic systems drive commerce rendering the living Earth mute. All these ways of living mix together yet one has dominated the political and economic forces, imperiling Tucsonans to climate emergencies.

Listen to a chapter from Threshold as a major character of Mexican descent, Delores Olivarez, takes a hike up “A” mountain observing the changes in the Tucson valley that trace all these cultural ways of knowing. Thanks to Terrain.org for publishing this chapter of Threshold.

The Nutmeg’s Curse

Amitav Ghosh’s book, The Nutmeg’s Curse – Parables for a Planet in Crisis – is an insightful genealogy of exploitation and extermination of people in Indonesia by Dutch explorers for control of a spice – nutmeg. The Plantation Economy.

He draws our attention to the ideas and practices that have led to destruction of entire civilizations for a profit. These destructive processes made European and American cultures rich while destroying cultures and landscapes of poorer countries whose people have been exploited.

Ghosh rightly points out that developed nations must reconsider how we live on Earth. Our way of life is clearly unsustainable. But, he asks, who is responsible for climate change? Who should pay?

Listen to an interview with the author on Living on Earth.

In similar ways, the mesquite forests were cut down along the Colorado River for steamboat power during the Gold Rush. Native people harvested wood from the forests and piloted the boats transporting Europeans in search of treasure across the river near Yuma. By then, native culture had been so disrupted by the colonization of North America that these were their only options to sustain their communities. The forests had been key sources of food, shelter, and energy for the Colorado River Nations who had lived sustainably within the margins of mesquite forests for thousands of years.

Photo by Susan Feathers, Sonoran Desert near Tucson, AZ

Read Threshold, a tale about how to live in a time of climate change.

Where will the lithium come from?

I have introduced readers to the Volts Podcast with David Roberts on numerous occasions and topics related to decarbonizing the economy.

In this podcast about lithium mining constraints, David interviews Dr. Thea Riofrancos. Thea is a scholar on resource extraction, renewable energy, climate change, green technology, social movements, and the left in Latin America.

Listen to an expert describe the constraints on meeting the demand for lithium for EV batteries. We need to get out ahead of this because there are justice and environmental factors to be considered. During the discussion, Dr. Riofrancos reflects on this moment in history and forecasts into the future about economic and environmental outcomes. She spurs us to ask other questions such as how do we want transportation to look in the future? Does everyone need a car? What about public transportation?

Extraction has realistic impacts. We need to be informed and move carefully.

Eye opening, smart, and timely. Listen now.

Read my novel Threshold for a story based in the Southwest concerning the complexities of climate change in each landscape. Go here to order a copy.

Threshold at the Tucson Festival of Books

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

February 4, 2023 | Tucson, Arizona

Visit Threshold for more details.

Southwestern Novel From Fireship Press—A fictional novel exploring the dramatic affects of climate change in the desert community of Tucson, Arizona

A Love Story in a Time of Climate Change
A Love Story in a Time of Climate Change

Susan Feathers will be present to sign and sell copies of Threshold during the Indie Authors Pavilion at the Tucson Festival of Books on March 5, Saturday from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Confronted by crisis in their own world—climate scientists, politicians, and desert museum curators face the biggest challenge man can encounter—no water, anywhere. In the barrios, families and community leaders, band together as they face unbearable heat and the crushing weight of the gangs that intimidate them. Amidst the turmoil, three teens navigate adolescence to become leaders in a new world. With shifting sand underfoot, characters follow their intuition and learn new skills as they chart a way into a viable future. Threshold will make you think while it celebrates the enduring nature of communities as they search for what is lasting and true. Threshold is a powerful new western novel in the best of its tradition. Appropriate for high school classes.

“In a riveting, multi-stranded plot, Threshold translates the conceptual worry over climate change into immediate, interpersonal dramas.” –Mary Lawlor, Muhlenberg College

“Such a well-written and thoughtfully conceived novel regarding very poignant issues of the day; THRESHOLD is a valuable contribution. The author continues a tradition in Southwestern Literature of social and environmental consciousness –Mark Rossi, Frank Waters Foundation.

About the Author

Susan Feathers is a writer and educator with 30 years of experience communicating science to the public. She served as the Director of Education at the Sonora-Arizona Desert Museum. Her writing focuses on the importance of place in forming character and destiny. Susan is an excellent speaker with years of experience delivering programs to the public. Her blog, WalkEarth.org, now in its 14th year, has an active following.

Fireship Press

P.O. BOX 68412 • Tucson, AZ 85737

520-360-6228 • fireshipinfo@gmail.com

http://www.fireshippress.com

Fiction: General, Action and Adventure, Urban

Trade paperback: 978-1-61179-369-7 / $19.95 • ePub & Mobi: 978-1-61179-370-3 / $7.95

Available through: Amazon, Barnes and Noble, iBooks and Kobo, and at Antigone’s and Barnes and Nobel (Wilmot) in Tucson.

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