SOURCE: Sanders, Scott Russell. “Speaking a Word for Nature.” In The Ecocriticism Reader: Landmarks in Literary Ecology, edited by Cheryll Glotfelty and Harold Fromm, pp. 182‐95. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1996.

In the following essay, Sanders laments that recent American fiction does not turn outward to acknowledge nature.

Why is so much recent American fiction so barren? Putting the question more honestly, why do I find myself reading fewer contemporary novels and stories each year, and why do I so often feel that the work most celebrated by literary mavens (both avant‐garde and establishment) is the shallowest? What is missing? Clearly there is no lack of verbal skill, nor of ingenuity in the use of forms. And there is no shortage of writers: if you pause in the checkout line at the supermarket the clerk is likely to drag his manuscript from under the counter and ask your...