NEW RELEASE! Adventures of an Amateur Naturalist in Mexico: The Imperial Ivory-billed Woodpecker, Revisited

BY TODD BRUCE AND GEORGE B. WINTON

Buried deep within the archives of the Smithsonian Institution, a never-before-seen document was discovered by a team of film producers conducting research. This eight-page manuscript details the account of amateur naturalist and journalist George B. Winton, on expedition in the remote mountain ranges of Mexico’s interior.

Edward William Nelson and Edward Alphonso Goldman, two of America’s greatest naturalists, were dispatched to Mexico in January of 1892 under the employ of the U. S. Biological Survey. The pair’s assignment was to better understand this remote region of North America, providing studies on its flora and fauna and their corresponding geographical distribution. The findings of these field surveys were unprecedented, and would later be foundational to a conservation movement that helped solidify the work of conservationists like John Muir, Theodore Roosevelt, and Gifford Pinchot.

In October of 1892, Nelson and Goldman made a particularly important stop in Patzcuaro, Michoacan, where they were joined by George B. Winton for an expedition into the Nahuatzen mountain range. It was on this collecting trip that the group came across, for the first time, several individuals of the world’s largest woodpecker: the imperial ivory-billed woodpecker (Campephilus imperialis).

Winton’s written account excellently portrays the mindset of the naturalist in the late nineteenth century, and provides a rare, detailed record of the sighting and the behavior of this fascinating and relatively unknown bird.

Paperback: 28 pages
Publisher: Black Swift Press (September 2019)
Language: English
ISBN-13: 978-0991450398
Product Dimensions: 7 x 0.1 x 10 inches

“THE HEIRESS OF MARY OLIVER” RETURNS WITH SECOND EDITION OF AWARD-WINNING COLLECTION THE WEIGHT OF SNOW

SANTA CRUZ, CALIFORNIA, June 1st, 2017—Author Bri Bruce (writing under the name B. L. Bruce) of Santa Cruz will release a second edition of her debut collection of poems The Weight of Snow: New & Selected Poems on June 1, 2017 as the fifth work of Black Swift Press’s assemblage.

In the newly edited and polished version of The Weight of Snow, Bruce explores the many plights of the human species, from the mysteries of the heart and the inescapability of death, to the depths of human emotion. Told from the perspective of a poetic naturalist, Bruce shares her appreciation of the wild, illuminating the profound in the mundane while chronicling the natural world as both an observer and an irrefutable part of it. Her poems focus strongly on image and locality, conjuring the imaginations of readers and celebrating the beauty in the follies of the human condition.

Santa Cruz County’s first Poet Laureate Gary Young says of Bruce’s book, “The poems in The Weight of Snow are heartfelt, skillfully written, and keenly observed fragments of the natural world and our lives there. Bravo.” Deemed the heiress of Mary Oliver by many, of Bruce’s work Karen Lewis, author and Executive Director of the Mendocino Coast Writer’s Conference, says, “There is nothing to say that would be as lyrical and eloquent as this poet’s language. She writes as a daughter of California’s wild places.” 

Since the release of the first edition, Bruce has received a number of accolades, including a Pushcart Prize nomination. The first edition of The Weight of Snow was the 2014 International Book Awards and 2014 USA Best Book Awards finalist in the poetry category. Bruce received the 2014 PushPen Press Pendant Prize for Poetry for her haiku series published in THREE alongside then Poet Laureate Erica Goss.

A graduate of UC Santa Cruz’s literature department with a concentration in poetry, Bruce has authored two additional works under Black Swift Press’s imprint: a collection of memoirical prose written entirely during a twenty-eight-day stay in the remote forests of Northern California titled 28 Days of Solitude and a chapbook of poetry, The Starling’s Song.

Bruce is currently working on her third collection of poetry, set to be released later this year, and her coming-of-age novel ten years in the making.

Bruce is available for interviews and appearances. For booking presentations, media appearances, interviews, and/or book signings contact bribruceproductions@gmail.com

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Bri Bruce, Bri Bruce Productions
Email: bribruceproductions@gmail.com
www.bribruceproductions.net