In The Promise of Sunrise: Finding Solace in a Broken World, a former Bronx Zoo zoologist and award-winning nature writer, Ted Levin, spent Covid rediscovering his valley and the joys of watching the season pass, day by day by day. The book is a chronicle of his rediscovery of the Thetford, Vermont hillside on which he lived and a recounting of the daily joys of observing home ground as Levin (like many of us) was forced by Covid to stay home for nearly two years. In the end, he sold his home and moved to Hurricane Hill in Hartford, Vermont, which ends the narrative, although he continues the same routine.
Here is a sample of a book that GWP is thrilled to publish in the Fall of 2024 ~
Praise for the Writing of Ted Levin
“This beautifully written book demonstrates just how good nature literature can be.”
—Edward O. Wilson, Two-time recipient of the Pulitzer Prize
“The marriage of a great writer and a great subject is always a joy to behold.”
—Bill McKibben, author of The End of Nature
“Levin is also exquisitely attuned to the larger rhythms of nature, as alive to what’s singing in the trees as to what’s slithering underfoot. This book resonates with wit, love, and wonder . . .”
Library Journal, starred review
“For years, Ted Levin’s tender and unflinching vision of the nature of streams, owls, frog operas, and compulsive woodchucks has explained to me my own home ground. Blood Brook will enlarge any world, enrich any view, and help to connect us humanly with the great and ongoing mystery of our surroundings. I love Blood Brook: A Naturlist’s Home Ground.”
—Louise Erdrich
Advance Praise for The Promise of Sunrise
“What Ted Levin’s book reveals is the power that comes with the intimate, quiet, and continuous observation of the place one calls home, wherever that may be. The homebound confines of Covid quarantine life were liberating, not isolating, when, as Levin did, care was taken every day to note the changes in the patterns of weather, nature, and animal life that surround us. Levin shows the joy and expansive power of quiet observation to enrich our world and transport us well beyond the horizon of our vision, and to reconnect us to those we lost but still hold dear.”
—Peter Welch, United States Senator, Vermont
“Out of the isolation of the Covid lockdown, Ted Levin has crafted a moving portrait of his beloved Vermont hills in language as sharp and intricate as haiku. Across more than 500 days, PROMISE OF SUNRISE shows how the healing rhythms of nature carry us through even the most uncertain times.”
—Scott Weidensaul, author of A World on the Wing and Living on the Wind
“I’ve been a follower of Ted Levin’s work for decades. Now, with The Promise of Sunrise, I have accompanied him through COVID and his solitary “sheltering-in-place” journey, although it is not quite that. He has his dogs, early morning walks, and singing, soaring, scurrying companions animating his world. I’ve come to admire him even more as a writer and observer of life we call nature.”
—Jack E. Davis, winner of the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for History
“Ted Levin’s Promise of Sunrise does not just invent a beautifully refurbished language for the close observation of nature; it turns the close observation of nature into an act of moral witness in a threatened world. He starts by answering the question of what to do with all the time the pandemic seemed to give us and ends by answering the question of what to do now that time seems to be running out. He’s not telling us how to take a walk in the woods so much as he’s telling us how to watch, how to listen, how to remember, how to hope and how to live, and he’s written one of the most deeply human books about nature I have ever read.”
—Tom Junod, staffer writer for ESPN and a two-time winner of the National Magazine Award
“Ted Levin is a naturalist so attuned to the natural world that every line of melodic prose in The Promise of Sunrise: Finding Solace in a Broken World is saturated with details that only a lifetime of observation could provide. Levin’s humor, descriptive ability, and his natural history expertise can be found on page after page: ‘Tanager in the open, summer bright and full of song. Needs a lozenge.’ Or ‘Whirligig beetles, ephemeral drafts of surface calligraphy, dashing around and around and around.’ The patterns, seasonal rituals, and rhythms of life found throughout the year, every year, in northern New England are presented with exquisite sensory detail and delightful perspective.”
—Mary Holland, www.
author, Naturally Curious, Naturally Curious Day By Day
About the Author
A lifelong naturalist and Yankee fan, Ted Levin follows a trail blazed by John Burroughs and John Muir, neither of whom paid baseball much attention. His work has appeared in Audubon, Sierra, Sports Illustrated, The New York Times, Newsday, The Boston Globe, The Guardian, and The Daily Telegraph, among many other publications. He is the author of Backtracking: The Way of Naturalist (1987), Blood Brook: A Naturalist’s Home Ground (1992), and Liquid Land: A Journey Through the Florida Everglades (2003), among other works of nonfiction. He won the Burroughs Medal in 2004, the highest literary honor awarded to an American nature writer. E. O. Wilson called America’s Snake: The Rise and Fall of the Timber Rattlesnake (2016) a beautifully written book [that] demonstrates just how good nature literature can be. Ted divides his time between the deck and the road.
About the Artist
Jeanette Fournier is a self-taught artist whose watercolor paintings are inspired by her passion for and love of the natural world. She specializes in illustrative drawings and paintings of animals, birds, and nature, which reflect a distinct and original style. She is drawn to create art of the creatures in our world so we will remember them and our innate connection to nature. In the same ways in which we are drawn to be in nature, she wants you to be drawn into the nature of her art. Jeanette’s work has been accepted in numerous regional and national watercolor exhibitions and has twice been a finalist in the Artist Magazine Annual Competition. In addition to the Society of Animal Artists, she is a member of the Copley Society of Art, a Signature Member of the New England Watercolor Society, North East Watercolor Society, and the Vermont Watercolor Society. She is an Associate member of the American Watercolor Society.
SPECS
The Promise of Sunrise: Finding Solace in a Broken World
NONFICTION
Trim Size: 5.5 x 8.25
Page Count: 300
Price: $21.95 (CA $29.95)
ISBN: 979-8-9891784-2-1
Publication Date: MARCH 20, 2025
Distributor: IPG/Chicago, Ingram.
Rights sold: All rights available.
Rights & PR: Dede Cummings, dede@greenwriterspress.com
Distributor: IPG; also available through Follett/Baker & Taylor, Ingram, and other wholesalers.
Individuals can pre-order directly from Bookshop.org, or contact your local, independent bookstore.
Booksellers, libraries, colleges/universities, gift shops, etc., can order through IPG:
Independent Publishers Group
814 N. Franklin Street
Chicago, IL 60610
Order Placement: (800) 888-4741
To request an advance reader copy—digital or print—email dede@greenwriterspress.com