Nonfiction

Hearth

A Global Conversation on Community, Identity, and Place
By
Annick Smith and Susan O’Connor
Foreword by
Barry Lopez
“Some of my favorite people on Earth are in this book, dear writers and grand spirits.” —ANNIE DILLARD
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A multicultural anthology, edited by Susan O’Connor and Annick Smith, about the enduring importance and shifting associations of the hearth in our world.

A hearth is many things: a place for solitude; a source of identity; something we make and share with others; a history of ourselves and our homes. It is the fixed center we return to. It is just as intrinsically portable. It is, in short, the perfect metaphor for what we seek in these complex and contradictory times—set in flux by climate change, mass immigration, the refugee crisis, and the dislocating effects of technology.

Featuring original contributions from some of our most cherished voices—including Terry Tempest Williams, Bill McKibben, Pico Iyer, Natasha Trethewey, Luis Alberto Urrea, and Chigozie Obioma—Hearth suggests that empathy and storytelling hold the power to unite us when we have wandered alone for too long. This is an essential anthology that challenges us to redefine home and hearth: as a place to welcome strangers, to be generous, to care for the world beyond one’s own experience.

ISBN
9781571313805
Publish Date
Pages
280
Dimensions
9 × 6 × 0.75 in
Weight
16.1 oz
Cover Art
Author

Annick Smith

Annick Smith is the author of several books, including Homestead, In This We Are Native, Big Bluestem, and most recently Crossing the Plains with Bruno. She is also the editor of Headwaters: Montana Writers on Water & Wilderness, and coeditor with Susan O’Connor of The Wide Open: Prose, Poetry, and Photographs of the Prairie and, most recently, Hearth: A Global Conversation on Identity, Community, and Place. She lives in Bonner, Montana.

Author

Susan O’Connor

Susan O’Connor is an environmental and arts advocate. She is coeditor with Annick Smith of Hearth: A Global Conversation on Identity, Community, and Place and The Wide Open: Prose, Poetry, and Photographs of the Prairie. She lives in Missoula, Montana.

Foreword
Barry Lopez

Barry Lopez

Barry Lopez was an essayist, author, and short story writer, and has traveled extensively in both remote and populated parts of the world. He was the author of Arctic Dreams, winner of the National Book Award; Of Wolves and Men, a National Book Award finalist, and numerous other works of fiction and nonfiction.

Praise and Prizes

  • “A simmering collection of 32 provocative and stunning works … Ultimately, this profound and radiant volume reveals that hearths take many forms, including a book.”

    Booklist

  • “[A] remarkable new collection … ‘We live within a blaze of transience both inevitable and complete,’ writes Jane Hirshfield. Hearth captures both the evanescence of that blaze and its enduring power to heal us.”

    World Literature Today

  • “A wide-ranging anthology devoted to the idea and symbol of the hearth, a traditional centerpiece of the home, the collection avoids nostalgia and deals squarely with how community and place can be approached and enacted in a world torn by immigration crises, climate change, and inequality.”

    Stephen Sparks
    Literary Hub

  • “Astounding, gorgeous … From front cover to back, Hearth is a visually and intellectually stimulating collection, always beautiful, but equal parts uplifting and heartbreaking.”

    Missoulian

  • “Here is a book for our real or imagined hearths, prompting us to discover and redefine them… . Hearth serves as a guide and a tribute to our collective struggles and the many possibilities of home.”

    The Arkansas International

  • “Thought-provoking, meditative, mournful, and comforting for readers who seek a connection to purpose and meaning, the anthology acts as a hearth of its own.”

    Publishers Weekly

  • “Some of my favorite people on Earth are in this book, dear writers and grand spirits at whose hearths I long to sit. And there are writers who are new to me, fascinating people whose lives vivify how very much about human existence still remains to be learned.”

    Annie Dillard

  • “The wisdom, compassion, and humanity in these pages are powerful medicine for our time. It’s not necessary to begin at the beginning, but I did. I started with W. S. Merwin’s beautiful poem and the rest of the essays seeped in where Merwin made his skillful soul-opening into my heart. By the time I put this gorgeous collection of writing down, I was flooded with both the balm of compassion and instructions for how to go forward, both.”

    Alexandra Fuller
    author of Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight

  • “The first hearth, I suppose, before humans controlled fire, was the body heat of a she-wolf or a bear, curled in her den, offering nurture to shivering pups or cubs. These fine writers take it from there. Wolves don’t need fire, as Barry Lopez notes in his introduction. But they and we all need something like it—a focus, a refuge, a source.”

    David Quammen

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