Looking at Women
...I must finally have drifted into the force-field of sex, as a space traveler who has lived all his years in free fall might rocket for the first time within gravitational reach of a star. Even as a bashful eleven- year- old I knew the word sex, of course, and I could paste that name across my image of the tantalizing girl. But a label for a mystery no more explains a mystery than the word gravity explains gravity....
American novelist, essayist, and teacher. Born in Memphis, Tennessee, and educated at Brown and Cambridge Universities, Sanders has spent his teaching career at Indiana University at Bloomington, where he is professor of English. The author of four novels, two short story collections, and seven children's books, he is best known for his nature writing and his eloquent, quietly insightful personal essays. Among his many books are Wilderness Plots: Tales about the Settlement of the American Land (1983, 2007); The Paradise of Bombs (1987), a collection of essays about violence in the United States; Staying Put: Making a Home in a Restless World (1994); The Force of Spirit (2001), a collection of meditations on family and the passage of time; A Private History of Awe (2006), a spiritual memoir; and A Conservationist Manifesto (2009). See also scottrussellsanders.com. 