The eighth edition of this acclaimed series offers a showcase for contemporary nature writing at the start of the new millennium. With subjects as diverse as the far-flung locations they describe, the twenty writers featured here share one defining objective: to show us that we need only look outdoors to find something worthy of our attention.In these pages, readers encounter a profusion of natural settings:

-- Larry Glass considers the contrast between urban and rural life from his Allegheny Mountain retreat;

-- Carol Kosarek records a violent encounter between her dog and an injured calf in the hill country of Texas;

-- Louise Wagenknecht examines the impact that the Pacific Northwest logging industry had on her childhood;

-- Gretchen Yost recounts her experience fighting fires in Wyoming's Wind River Range;

-- David Petersen reflects on elk hunting in Colorado;

-- Bill Sherwonit contemplates the flora and fauna near his suburban Anchorage home.

Whether their explorations take them to north shore of Lake Michigan or to the far reaches of southern Uganda, these writers, both established and emerging voices, demonstrate the continuing vitality of this literature of place.