16. This book is dedicated to Ursula K. Le Guin, a distinguished writer of science fiction and fantasy. Her parents were celebrated anthropologists, and her work has been described as “anthropological science fiction,” because of the way she creates imaginary worlds as lenses through which to view our own world more clearly. Do you see a similar impulse in “Travels in the Interior,” “The Audubon Effect,” or any of the other stories?
17. Look up an on-line description of the Australian Aborigine concept of “Dreamtime.” Why would such a concept appeal to a storyteller, such as Sanders?
18. In interviews, Sanders has described his debt to writers such as Mark Twain, Ursula K. Le Guin, Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Italo Calvino, and Jorge Luis Borges. Insofar as you may know the work of any of these writers, can you see their influence in these pages?
19. If you have read any of Sanders’ nonfiction—books such as A Conservationist Manifesto, Earth Works, or Hunting for Hope—what parallels do you see between his concerns in those works and the concerns expressed in these stories?
20. Has the reading of these stories prompted any fantastic imaginings of your own?
SCOTT RUSSELL SANDERS is the author of twenty books of fiction and nonfiction, including Hunting for Hope, Earth Works, and Divine Animal. Among his honors are the Lannan Literary Award, the John Burroughs Essay Award, the Mark Twain Award, the Cecil Woods Award for Nonfiction, and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. In 2012 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of English at Indiana University. He and his wife, Ruth, a biochemist, have reared two children in their hometown of Bloomington in the hardwood hill country of Indiana’s White River Valley.
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