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The National Writers Union will be hosting a reading and open mic via Zoom on Monday, January 17, starting at 6:00 p.m. This month our featured reader will be David Yetman, who will be reading from his recently published book, Natural Landmarks of Arizona (U of A Press). David is an American academic expert on Sonora, Mexico and an Emmy award-winning media presenter on the world's deserts. He is a research social scientist at the University of Arizona.

Regarding the book, David states: “Since my arrival in Arizona in 1954 I have been a mountain junkie--especially captivated by prominences--mountains that stand out among others--the landmark sort.  During the many intervening decades, I came to wonder, why isn't everything flat?  After all, gravity pulls down every raised surface and assisted by rain, snow, freezing, wind, and enough time, gravity makes all the rough places plain (as the Deutero-Isaiah put it).  I have long appreciated the power of landmarks over the human psyche.  The theory of plate tectonics was a philosophical rescue for me as well as providing a new geological paradigm. By the 2000s, I could finally look at Arizona's natural monuments as products of terrestrial forces I could understand, at least conceptually--I began to understand why they are there--how they were raised from the plains. That new understanding has made them all the more significant for me.  And thus Natural Landmarks of Arizona came into being.” 

If you would like the Zoom link, please email us at nwutucson@yahoo.com