Head - Waters (Left Bank, No. 7)

From the editor's foreword:"You are invited to dive into the wide expanse of our theme: from the politics of water with Marc Reisner (Cadillac Desert) who veers from his previous attacks on California's rice growers, when a traditional enemy also changes course; to the influence of rivers on personal growth in Jeff Smith's essay on extricating himself from past drownings; to water as the setting for racism depicted in Ed Edmo's painful memoir on swimming pools; to the search for water in the desert in Ellen Meloy's sardonic Las Vegas tale; to water as killer in Pam Houston's (Cowboys Are My Weakness) story of a grueling white-water ride. You can swim with dolphins, get baptized, drown, meet the shysters who sold us a dried up water philosophy, cruise the lesbian ocean, become water, flood cities, and fish for the big ones."Join us in celebrating water, and deep wells."Head/Waters seemed like a marvelously ambiguous theme. It wasn't quickly arrived at, though, with the discussion staff being pretty darned ambiguous, too. When we finally started soliciting cornerstone pieces from several authors, we began to realize that we might have a flood that would be hard to contain between the covers of a book. That made us happy. When we put out the general call for submissions, we were blown away by the response and the amazing range of takes on the theme.We had a blast. You will too.Here, in order of appearance, are the contributors: Susan Zwinger, William deBuys, Stephen J. Beard, Ellen Meloy, Ken Olsen, Aaron Johanson, Nancy Lord, Gary Snyder, Marusya Bociurkiw, Pam Houston, Brenda Peterson, George Johanson, David James Duncan, Jesssica Maxwell, Joan Skogan, Rick Rubin, Lorian Hemingway, Ed Edmo, Jeffery Smith.