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Inland Island: The Sutter Buttes • By Walt Anderson, Environmental Studies
The Sutter Buttes, a unique
cluster of volcanoes isolated in
the midst of the Sacramento
Valley, was the sacred “Middle
Mountain” of the valley Indian
tribes.
“As a mountain range, the
Sutter Buttes stands apart, an
island of upland in the great sea
of lowland flanked by the Sierra
Nevada and the Coast Ranges,”
write the publishers. “Its softly
rounded hills and angular pinnacles
are cloaked in grasses,
shrubs, and trees in patterns that
reflect nature’s design, not
man’s. Naturalist Walt
Anderson provides an insider’s
view of this special mountain,
telling stories with both insight
and humor. The rocks, plants,
animals, and the ecosystems
they collectively form are given
K.L. Cook recently returned
from a two-month tour for his
award-winning book, Last Call.
The collection of interconnected
stories, which span
three generations in the life of
one West Texas family, won the
2003 Prairie Schooner Book
Prize in Fiction and was published
in October by the
University of Nebraska Press.
Cook’s book tour took him to
book festivals, conferences,
writing centers, and colleges
and universities in 12 states.
Cook teaches creative writing
and literature at Prescott
College and is the associate
dean of the Resident Degree
Program. He is currently on
sabbatical for the 2004-05 academic
year, during which he
will be promoting this book, as
well as finishing other projects.
The publication of Last Call
marks the culmination of a
great writing year for Cook.
24 TransitionsFall 2004
personal faces through Walt’s
insights and unabashed humor.
Humans are also a part of the
Last Call • By K.L. Cook, Arts and Letters
Most of the stories in the book
have been previously published
in prestigious literary journals
and magazines, such as The
Threepenny Review,
Shenandoah, American Short
Fiction, and Witness. Several of
the stories have garnered additional
awards, including an
Arizona Commission on the
Arts fellowship, a Pushcart
Prize nomination, and, most
recently, the grand prize in the
Santa Fe Writers Project
Literary Arts Series.
“The Prairie Schooner award
was particularly gratifying
because Prairie Schooner, a literary
journal sponsored by the
University of Nebraska, has an
outstanding reputation,” Cook
said. “It has published, in the 40
years of its existence, the most
acclaimed American writers of
the last half-century, often early
in their careers. To have my
book chosen for the inaugural
Inland Island: The
Sutter Buttes is
published by The
Natural Selection
and Middle
Mountain
Foundation and is
available in the
Prescott College
Bookstore, from the
publishers, or from
Amazon.com.
natural history of this place, and
their roles, from prehistoric to
modern, are discussed.”
year of their book prizes was a
tremendous honor.”
Last Call has already
received advance praise from a
number of acclaimed writers,
including Robert Boswell,
National Book Award-finalist
Jean Thompson, and Arizona’s
Ron Carlson. The first pre-pub-