Announcements going out

We are sending out the formal announcement and request for participation this week to ten tentative lead chapter authors: Sharon Hermann, Al Schotz, Alvin Diamond, Ken Wills, Ann Johnson, Carol Johnston, Jim Godwin, Dan Spaulding, Jim Miller, and Nancy Lowenstein. Several other potential contributors are also being contacted.

Meeting #3

On May 25, Debbie, Eric, Mark, and Al Schotz met at Debbie's house to flesh out some chapter structure details and brainstorm over the potential contributors. Hooking Mark's laptop to Debbie's big TV, we were able to cover a lot of ground. Next scheduled meeting: June 20, again at Debbie's.

Auburn Meeting

Eric, Debbie, and Mark will be meeting on April 20 and 21 in Auburn for another session. We'll be going through some of George's materials as well as planning next steps. A recent development is learning this past week of Scot Duncan's book-in-progress on the biodiversity of Alabama, which will overlap considerably with ours.

Al Schotz on Board

Without Al, this would not be the book we want it to be. I vote for Al as our "Technical Adviser," to the extent he has time.

Thanks, Al!

Kickoff Meeting

We had a great meeting in Auburn on February 6. Convening for lunch at the China Palace across from Funchess Hall were the three co-editors, joined by the ever-supportive Beth Motherwell of the U of A Press and Chris Oberholster of TNC. The meeting then moved to Debbie's office, where we continued with a brief visit from Gary Mullen. Then more strategizing at Debbie's house. We will be developing an outline and a draft chapter for circulation to potential contributors. Some of these people have already been contacted, and others will be approached in the coming days.

U of A Press Gosse Nature Series

Alvin Diamond reminds me (and Debbie Folkerts has previously told me) that Gary Mullen is editing the Philip Henry Gosse nature series of books being published by the University of Alabama Press. I understand Beth Motherwell at U of A Press is aware of our concept, and quite interested. It would seem that our book belongs in this series.

About Comments

I have turned on comment notification, only because Beth's recent comment (our first) appeared and I wasn't aware of it for quite a while. I have entered our email addresses in the blog setup so that those of us authorized to create blog entries (presently just me and Beth, waiting for Eric and Debbie to sign on) will now get an email whenever someone leaves a comment. If you want to opt out of this, let me know and I'll take you off the notification list.