Today I begin a new phase of writing and communicating on this blog. My first novel will be released in November by Fireship Press.
Threshold is a labor of love for the Sonoran Desert region and the people of Tucson, Arizona.
The Sonoran Desert is one of Earth’s most unique landscapes. It’s evolution from a semi-tropical region to its present-day high desert community, makes today’s Sci-Fi settings and characters pale in comparison. For example, there is a species of tree that sheds its foliage in the extreme heat to conserve water. It photosynthesizes through its pea green trunk instead. Another tree expands and contracts with rainfall or drought, while its fluted trunk casts shade upon itself.
I will tell some of those stories on this blog over the next 6 months as a preview to the novel.
Of equal fascination is the evolution of Tucson’s multicultural landscape. For example, the Tucson basin near the modern day, metropolitan city of Tucson, has been continuously farmed over the last 4,000 years. Successions of people came, split up, and formed new groups, ebbing and flowing in the desert’s own tidal rhythms of rainfall and climate, and cooperation or conflict among local human communities, and nation-states arriving with dreams of glory and conquest.
Look for links and pages that lead you to sources to learn more.
Teachers! This is a great way for your students to explore a very different ecosystem.
Questions and comments can be submitted to me on this blog page. I look forward to hearing from many of you as we begin to explore the land where my characters live, work, and struggle to find a way forward in an uncertain time.
Susan Feathers 