Editor and publisher
LeAnn Spencer, the founder of A Prairie Journal, is a journalist with nearly 30 years of experience at the Chicago Tribune as an editor and writer. While there she wore many hats, but one of the most satisfying was during her years as an environmental reporter. Since 2003, she has been a regular contributor to Chicago Wilderness Magazine and a private publishing consultant. Her love for the natural world stems to her childhood on an Indiana farm. In the last 15 years, she has explored the positive influences of the human-animal-nature connection by working as a volunteer using therapy dogs to assist children in hospitals, schools and residential facilities. In her spare time, she’s a novice bird watcher and enjoys a part-time career as a professional harpist. She has a Master’s of Liberal Arts degree from the University of Chicago, a B.A. in journalism from Indiana University, and is enrolled in the naturalist certificate program at the Morton Arboretum, Lisle, Illinois.
Contributors
Susan B. Auld began writing while growing up on Long Island. She left the beaches for the fields of Wisconsin and prairies of Illinois where she renewed her love of words—first by becoming a speech-language pathologist and then a poet. She lives in the Chicago's northwest suburbs where she writes and teaches the power of words to young children. Susan seeks out natural spaces for renewal and inspiration—returning to the beaches whenever possible. Her poetry provides a quiet place to pause and appreciate nature’s meditative stillness or to journey back through gauzy memories to simpler times. Her work has been published in The Rockford Review, Prairie Light Review, Blindman’s Rainbow, and Arts Beat. “Waiting Innocence” is her first published collection.
Cindy Crosby is the author of several books on nature and spirituality, including By Willoway Brook, published by Paraclete Press. As a fulltime freelance writer, her work has appeared in such publications as Publishers Weekly, Books & Culture, Chicago Wilderness Magazine, and the Mars Hill Review. An avid backpacker, she served as artist-in-residence at Isle Royale National Park in 2005 and teaches workshops on nature journaling. Cindy is a prairie volunteer and docent at the Morton Arboretum, where she has taught nature writing classes. She and her husband Jeff live in Glen Ellyn, Illinois.
After 31 years in law enforcement, Lee Harrison was able to follow a dream: the search for the perfect photograph. Lee’s love of photography and nature were gifts from her father who taught her how to find beauty in even the ugliest bug. The two of them would walk for hours looking for birds, animals and beautiful scenery to photograph. Today, Lee divides her time between Orland Park, IL, and Port Aransas, TX. More of Lee’s work can be found on her website at www.lunalee.com.
Jannett Highfill is a long-time resident of Peoria, Illinois, one grown fond of corn and bean fields, the Illinois River and its numerous bridges and monumental bluffs. Originally from Kansas, she returns as often as she can to country roads straight as a stick and wheat fields stretching as far as you can see. Her poems have been in, among others, The Iowa Review, Tar River Poetry, The Greensboro Review, and Rhino.
Richard Johns grew up in Chicago and now lives in a small town on the far western fringe of that city’s metropolitan sprawl. He has had poems published in The Spoon River Quarterly (as it once was called), Strong Coffee, After Hours, Chicagopoetry.com, and MiPOesias. Three widely unavailable chapbooks bear his name: “2000 Poems,” “Hollywood Beach,” and “Explicit Lyrics: Poems.” He can be reached at richardmjohns@hotmail.com.
Allen Lefebvre currently resides in Regina, Saskatchewan, and has always lived in the heart of the Canadian prairies. Photography has been his passion for more than thirty years, with a particular affection for the prairie landscape. Allen acquired his photographic skills through hands-on experience, and despite having worked for both commercial photography studios and public art galleries, continues to focus on photography as an avocation rather than a professional pursuit. Reflecting his primary interest in landscapes and the broad expanses of the prairie, he has been concentrating on panoramic images using a unique wide-angle Noblex camera with a rotating lens that approximates the angle of view of the human eye. His artistic vision is simple: capture the variety and depth of the landscape at its best, using the minimum of photographic tools and relying heavily on vision and the ability to see. Rarely does he venture out to create a specific image, preferring to prowl the back roads and capture what is given to him. More of his work can be found at www.allenlefebvre.ca.
Barbara Mahany, a staff writer for the Chicago Tribune, grew up thinking everyone's mother took home movies of scarlet tanagers in treetops, and not the children in their playpens. She grew up with shoes soaked from the burbling brook that ran across the street, and she spent long days, whole summers really, in the woods. One of her first memories is of being driven to a grove of endless lily-of-the-valley. It was something sacred then, and she knew it. She turns still to the quiet of the woods, and the glories of the moon, to find the wisdom, and take in the life lessons so pregnant, so available, for those willing to listen, to watch, to absorb.
Darsha Primich loves reading and nature. She has combined these interests recently in the Naturalist Certificate program at the Morton Arboretum. In the past, her writing consisted primarily of social work reports, notations, and correspondence, during more than two decades in that helping profession. Now, she is writing poems, stories, and essays. While it might seem like a leap in logic from social work to nature writing, she has observed that human beingsshare both an ordinariness and complexity withwild things in other natural systems.By exploring woodlands, prairies,wetlands and streams, she has been able to further appreciate human nature.
For decades Mary Ramsden rarely picked up a camera but after she became grandmother to twin girls in 2002 she found herself catapulted into the world of photography. Since then, she’s taken thousands of pictures of the girls. Then, after annoying even her most indulgent friends, she began taking pictures of two of her other great loves: nature and the rest of her family. Ordained a priest in 1987, her life is rounded out with police chaplaincy, dog training, music, and a most patient husband. They live in Summit, Il., with a passel of dogs who, when they’re not chasing tennis balls and each other’s tails, also serve as willing subjects for the camera.
Erin Tuttle has a B.A. in English from Hope College, is finishing a graduate degree in theology from Regent College, and is working on a Naturalist Certificate from the Morton Arboretum. Erin enjoys digging in the dirt, driving ramshackle vehicles, and spending time in her backyard with her three hens. Someday, maybe she’ll compile a book of all her odd stories, but until then, you can find her among the big bluestem and silphium of Schulenburg Prairie, or wandering through the woods with her eyes fixed in the trees. Just don’t trip her when she’s in this state.