National
Scott Russell Sanders
Born in Tennessee and reared in Ohio, Scott Russell Sanders studied at Brown University and earned his Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge before going on to become a Distinguished Professor of English at Indiana University.
From his home amid the oaks and owls of southern Indiana, he reflects on the vast, marvelous, ongoing show we call nature, and he puzzles about our two-legged species—wondering why we divide into hostile tribes, fight wars, and degrade the conditions for life on Earth—and he imagines how we might live more wisely.
He is the author of more than twenty books of fiction, essays, and personal narratives, including Hunting for Hope, A Conservationist Manifesto, A Private History of Awe, and Earth Works: Selected Essays. His latest books are The Way of Imagination, a reflection on healing and renewal in a time of social and environmental upheaval, and Small Marvels, a slightly magical novel-in-stories. In addition to works of fiction and essays set in the Hoosier state, he has written the text for Wild and Scenic Indiana, and he has written about our limestone heritage in Stone Country: Then & Now, co-authored with photographer Jeffry Wolin. For his writing, Sanders has won the Lannan Literary Award, the Associated Writing Programs Creative Nonfiction Award, the John Burroughs Essay Award, the Mark Twain Award, and the Eugene and Marilyn Glick Indiana Authors Award, as well as fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts.
His work has appeared in such magazines as Harper’s, Audubon, Orion, and The Georgia Review, and it has been reprinted in The Art of the Essay, The Norton Reader, and more than a hundred other anthologies, including the annual Best American Essays. He was elected in 2012 to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. His writing examines the human place in nature, the pursuit of social justice, and the search for a spiritual path. He and his wife, Ruth, a biochemist, have reared two children and helped rear two grandchildren in their hometown of Bloomington, in the hardwood hill country of Indiana’s White River Valley.
2024 Fiction Shortlist: Small Marvels
In Limestone, Indiana, a city tucked away among forested hills, peculiar things happen, often in the vicinity of a jack-of-all-trades named Gordon Mills. Centaurs and nymphs shelter in a local cave, alligators lurk in the sewers, warm snow falls on the Fourth of July, cornstalks rise higher than chimneys, and the northern lights shine down on the municipal dump.
Gordon takes such events in stride and deals with them as part of his work on the city maintenance crew. He earns just enough to support a boisterous family, which includes his formidable wife Mabel, their four children, Mabel’s parents, and his widowed mother—nine souls packed into an old house that falls apart as fast as Gordon can fix it.
Part folktale, part tall tale, part comic romance, Small Marvels revels in the wonders of everyday life. So, welcome to Limestone, Indiana. You won’t find it on a map, but you may remember visiting the place in dreams, the rare, blissful ones in which puzzles are solved, kids flourish, hard work pays off, and love endures.
2010 National Award Winner
2009 National Award Finalist