Question

Another way to tap the power of imagination is through place. My own background as a writer is rooted in nature, having grown up reading Henry David Thoreau, Rachel Carson, and John Muir long before I ever dipped into Madeleine L'Engle, Lloyd Alexander, Ursula Le Guin, E. B. White, or J.R.R. Tolkien. My early writings were really nature journals; at nine, I wrote a complete biography—of a tree. (It was a once-majestic chestnut tree not far from my home.) So it should come as no surprise that I view place as much more than just a setting for a story. It is, in truth, another form of character,