Description
The Vulture Trees
Written by: Sue Ring deRosset
Illustrated by: Jessica Owings Crouch
ISBN: 978-1-937896-12-6
Format: Paperback, 52 pages
Release Date: December 9, 2016
“Like a collection of ornate dark lanterns they filled the tree. They rooted like contemplative priests, or Zen Buddhists or peaceful tree-setters or artists in overcoats, in the weeping willow, whose flexible branches are just starting to turn and thicken with the yellowish-green leaf-buds of spring.”
As the inaugural publication of Wolverine Farm Publishing’s new series, “Civil / Wild,” Sue Ring deRosset weaves together a narrative of storytelling and history that centers around a stand of spruce trees and their annual inhabitants, the vultures, in Fort Collins, Colorado. The Vulture Trees is part natural history, part social/ecological investigation , and mostly a beautiful story of love, loss, and enchantment with one of the world’s most under-appreciated creatures. Sue Ring deRosset collaborated with Wolverine Farm’s letterpress printer, Jessica Owings Crouch, to create 6 linocut illustrations featured in the text and printed on Wolverine Farm’s Vandercook SP15 letterpress as a set of 6 postcards sold with each copy of the book.
Sue Ring deRosset, MA-CNF, is a teacher and editor and the author of The Vulture Trees (WFP, 2016). She has taught creative writing workshops at Front Range Community College, Northern Colorado Writers, and Fort Collins’s Book Fest. In 2010 she was the managing editor of Matter journal and a judge for the Anthology category of the Colorado Book Award. Her stories and essays have appeared in the Sun, Wildlife Conservation, Utah Holiday, Matter, Front Range Review, and other national and regional journals and magazines. She lives in Fort Collins, where she is at work on a memoir and a series of novels. Through Draft Horse Writing & Editing Services, Sue Ring deRosset works one-on-one with writers on the Front Range as a creative writing coach, developmental book editor, and copyeditor. Please visit: drafthorsewriting.wordpress.com
Jessica Owings Crouch is a misplaced midwesterner weary after a long and winding journey, Jessica is happy to call Fort Collins her new home. True love struck many years ago when she met a Vandercook printing press in Knoxville, Tennessee, and today she finds joy and fulfillment in sparking a love of letterpress in others. She’s a maker of many things, mostly involving print and paper, including a printmaking/illustration collaboration with her brother called The State Park. When not dreaming and scheming in the studio, Jessica mucks about as a lackadaisical gardener, tackles various home rehab projects and rides her bicycle. Generally her hands are stained with ink, soil or bicycle grease. See more of her work at www.jesowings.com.
