"What I'm teaching is how to write from the body. If you generate sound and rhythm, that's what the body feels. So you're creating at the sentence level a reality that cannot be denied. I'm feeling it, versus just a bland sentence that's only conveying information or moving the story along. It's a profound difference."

-Nina Schuyler, author, professor

In a parallel universe, author Nina Schuyler is a cardiac surgeon, resuscitating hearts and restoring life. Whether she's dissecting stunning sentences to uncover what makes them pulse with vitality or recognizing the urgent heartbeat of our planet, Nina attunes herself to the primordial rhythms of aliveness. Through her skillful, passionate expertise, she rallies us to hear them too.

Much like the heavy weight of chronic illness, the enormity of environmental issues can silence our hearts and minds, lulling us into despair. Yet, in countless conversations with those bravely navigating uncertainty, I've learned that confronting our fears with emotional honesty can reveal a resilience that shines even in darkness. Nina Schuyler is one of those luminous souls. She recognizes the power of storytelling to convey the urgency of our time, artfully weaving her love for the planet with beautiful language and empowering her students and readers to take hopeful, courageous action.

Her recent collection, In This Ravishing World, which won the W.S. Porter Prize for Short Story Collections and The Prism Prize for Climate Literature, filled my heart with an overwhelming sense of possibility. Nina's characters, including our sentient Earth, embody both the weight of despair and the buoyancy of hope, refusing to yield to the shadows of hopelessness. In a masterful dance of narrative, she intertwines disparate lives, revealing their universal struggles—whether it's the environmentalist sinking in sorrow, the architect seeking escape for his family, or the innocent youth who can't turn away.

Nina offers more than just a mirror to our harsh reality; she creates a sanctuary where helplessness and hope, hurt and healing, coexist in harmony. If there ever was a call to rally our energy and plant seeds of promise for the future, In This Ravishing World is that clarion call. Through her weekly dissections of delicious prose in Stunning Sentences and her teachings at Stanford Continuing Studies, Nina leads her students—and me—into a dance with language, bringing it back into the body, where our interconnectedness with each other and the Earth becomes a rhythm that is alive and vibrant.

"I feel completely indebted to the evolutionary track that began 4.5 billion years ago after meticulously going through it and understanding all that life had to go through to get to us. And it completely changed me and I'm heartbroken. But I'm angry and I'm trying to be risk-taking and courageous to do what I can."