Turning Homeward: Restoring Hope and Nature in the Urban Wild

by Adrienne Scanlan

Overview

“…this book exudes humility and hope.” – The Kitsap Herald

“Turning Homeward is a work of thoughtful atonement. Scanlan writes honestly and tenderly about what has not worked in mending her life, and the lives of salmon and urban streams, as well as what has. And out of despair at the havoc we have wreaked on this earth and each other, a quiet sense of hope grows in her words, the kind of active expectation of the results of conscious work that can in fact, lead to mending the wounds of the world and we humans.” – Story Circle Book Reviews
**Turning Homeward is a 2017 Washington State Book Award Finalist, 2016 Sigurd Olson Nature Writing Award Winner (Notable Book) and Nautilus Book Awards (2016-2017 Silver Medal)**

• A beautifully rendered natural history of the Puget Sound region

Turning Homeward: Restoring Hope and Nature in the Urban Wild is the journey of a newcomer to the Pacific Northwest who learns that home isn’t simply where you live, but where you create belonging.

Set in Seattle and Western Washington's urban and suburban “altered” landscapes, Turning Homeward creates an accessible narrative of the complicated joys of rolling up one’s sleeves to help repair our beautiful, broken world. Adrienne Scanlan's personal story blends into the natural history of Puget Sound and the tangled issues around urban renewal and river restoration. In the process, readers move with her into a meaningful, hope-filled engagement with place and another understanding of the idea of home.

Adrienne explores how seasons spent restoring the city’s salmon runs help her make peace with her father's death and build a new marriage. Turning Homeward speaks to a simple truth spreading through our society: The nature we cherish lives alongside us, and by restoring it we heal both home and heart.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781680510621
Publisher:	Mountaineers Books, The
Publication date:	09/20/2016
Pages:	160
Product dimensions:	5.60(w) x 7.60(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Adrienne Ross Scanlan is the author of Turning Homeward – Restoring Hope and Nature in the Urban Wild (Washington State Book Award Finalist 2017, Sigurd Olson Nature Writing Award 2016 Notable Book, and Nautilus Book Award Silver Medal 2016-2017). Her nature writing and other creative nonfiction has appeared in City Creatures, LabLit: The Culture of Science in Fiction & Fact, the For Love of Orcas anthology, and many other publications. She received an Artist Trust Literature Fellowship, was the nonfiction editor for the Blue Lyra Review, and is a reviewer for the New York Journal of Books. Adrienne has a Certificate in Editing from the University of Washington and is a freelance developmental editor. Her second book (in progress) is about a small personal project – planting one thousand trees in western Washington. You can reach her at [e-mail].

Editorial Reviews

Adrienne Ross Scanlan writes beautifully about salmon restoration and citizen science, as well as about how 'to stay alert for beauty in overlooked places.' Bittersweet and yet inspiring, her book asks the important questions: how can we share our home with wildlife and wild places in an increasingly urbanized metropolis?

Barbara Sjoholm

In this beautiful book Adrienne Ross Scanlan seamlessly interweaves themes of life, place, science, and spirit. Feeling uprooted after moving to the west, she discovers the surest path to home: participation in the natural world. Bees, wrens, herons, turtles, and salmon become her guides. The stories she shares will inspire all readers to look more deeply at the wild in our midst, and in so doing, feel more connected to the places we live. But Scanlan doesn't simply rest in the peace of nature. This book gently invites us all to delight in the natural world, yes, but also to participate fully in its repair and its wholeness.

Lyanda Lynn Haupt

Adrienne Ross Scanlan’s Turning Homeward: Restoring Hope and Nature in the Urban Wild endeavors to find a difficult balance between cities and wilderness.

InsideHook - Tobias Carroll

In her delightful and thought-provoking narrative, Adrienne Ross Scanlan takes readers into small nooks of the natural world where she explores the big and often-neglected questions of what it means to call a place home. Turning Homeward will inspire newcomers and long-time residents anywhere to follow Scanlan s example as she surveys, rescues, tosses, uproots, worries, digs, and restores her way into her community.

Maria Mudd Ruth

"Thoughtful, complicated... this book exudes humility and hope."

Bellingham Herald - Barbara McMichael

Turning Homeward is a work of thoughtful atonement. Scanlan writes honestly and tenderly about what has not worked in mending her life, and the lives of salmon and urban streams, as well as what has. And out of despair at the havoc we have wreaked on this earth and each other, a quiet sense of hope grows in her words, the kind of active expectation of the results of conscious work that can in fact, lead to mending the wounds of the world and we humans.

Story Circle Book Reviews - Susan J. Tweit