Deanne Stillman, Rebecca K. O'Connor and Ruth Nolan

No Place for a Puritan: The Literature of California's Deserts (Heyday Books)+

Deanne Stillman, Rebecca K. O'Connor, and Ruth Nolan will read from their included pieces in No Place for a Puritan, a new anthology of California desert literature, edited by Nolan. "You could argue that the great California desert is such an idiosyncratic landscape that stories of lives spent there are too regional to have universal meaning. But, as this thrilling and necessary collection attests, you'd be wrong. A landscape that captivates writers as diverse as Joan Didion and John Steinbeck, that provokes unexpected works of literary beauty from obscure Spanish missionaries and Chemehuevi Indians must be a place that reflects somethingdeep and true about us all."  --Marisa Silver, author of God of War Ruth Nolan, a former Bureau of Land Management California Desert District helicopter hotshot firefighter and inner-city high school teacher, is the editor of No Place for a Puritan: the literature of California’s Deserts (2009) and a contributor to Inlandia: a literary journey through Southern California’s Inland Empire (2006.) Both books were published by Heyday Books. She is a poet and writer whose subjects range from desert noir to motherhood, and her writing has been published in numerous literary journals. She recently collaborated with the UCR-California Museum of Photography on a film, Escape to Reality: 24 hrs @ 24 fps, and is also an avid photographer. She and has published three collections of poetry: Wild Wash Road, Dry Waterfall and Lava Flow Petroglyphs. Rebecca K. O’Connor, a professional animal trainer and falconer, is the author of Lift, a memoir published by Red Hen Press (2009), and was a Pushcart Nominee for the 2008 Prize. Her novel, Falcon’s Return was a Holt Medallion Finalist for best first novel and she has published numerous reference books on the natural world. As a professional animal trainer, O’Connor has worked with a variety of exotic animals in zoos and private facilities around the United States and abroad. She has been a falconer for fifteen years and is a nationally known parrot behaviorist. Her book A Parrot for Life: Raising and Training the Perfect Parrot Companion was published in 2007 by TFH and is required reading for those adopting parrots are several rescue facilities. She is also a nationally sought-after lecturer at parrot clubs and parrot festivals. Deanne Stillman brakes for sand.  A widely published, critically acclaimed writer, she is the author of Mustang: The Saga of the Wild Horse in the American West (Houghton Mifflin, 2008), which was named a "Best Book of 2008" by the Los Angeles Times and won a California Book Award silver medal for nonfiction.  Deanne is also the author of the bestseller Twentynine Palms: A True Story of Murder, Marines, and the Mojave, a Los Angeles Times "Best Book of 2001" which Hunter Thompson called "a strange and brilliant story by an important American writer." It was recently published in a new, updated edition by Angel City Press. She is also the author of Joshua Tree: Desolation Tango, a tribute to Joshua Tree National Park, published by the University of Arizona Press. She is currently writing Mojave Manhunt for Nation Books, based on her Rolling Stone piece of the same name, which was a finalist for a PEN journalism award. She is a member of the core faculty at the UC Riverside-Palm Desert MFA Creative Writing Program. THIS EVENT WAS RECORDED LIVE AT SKYLIGHT BOOKS MAY 18, 2010.