Susan MacKay

I grew up in a small Midwestern university town, earned degrees in both French and Russian language and literature, and then traveled extensively in Europe, Canada, the U.S., the Caribbean Islands, and West Africa, both for pleasure and in connection with my work as a translator/interpreter/teacher of foreign languages. Along the way, I discovered that I wasn’t able to live in an urban or suburban environment because of health problems from severe environmental illness, even if that was where I had to be to find employment. Which explains why I have spent most of my adult life on a small, back-to-the-land, organic farm and later on an equally organic, rural, high desert mini-ranch. This rural lifestyle has given me many years of experience and pleasure observing local wildlife, caring for domestic farm animals, and gardening/farming, using organic methods. These two streams of influence come together as rhyming poetry in my “translations” of the words and thoughts of my dog, Jori, about life in the high desert and our interactions with the land, with the plants, animals and people who share that land, and with the desert environment that affects us all.