proof pages

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My second book for UT Press will detail the story of Dr. James T. Tanner and his study of the historic ivory-billed woodpecker of the 1930s, the famous remnant population of ivory-bills first rediscovered and photographed in 1935 on Cornell's Dr. Arthur Allen's expedition across the country with Peter Paul Kellogg and grad student Jim Tanner.

I hold in my hands the proof pages of “Ghost Birds: Jim Tanner and the Quest for the Ivory-billed Woodpecker, 1935-1941.”

The proof pages are essentially the book in loose sheets. If I drop them on the floor, it'll be the devil putting the lot back in the proper order. I'm reading it for the last time and with the help of Karen Sue, preparing an index.

The book follows Tanner on his peregrinations through the South. Although the title is a long one, so was Tanner's search. Quest is the key word, the road miles, the swamp miles, the slogging through the mud miles. Over the course of his journey through eight southern states—South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, Arkansas, Texas—Jim used a 1931 Model A Ford, canoe, dugout "pirogue," rowboat, motorboat, kicker boat, rented airplane, horse, mule and, most importantly, his own two legs: on dry land, mud and ankle-, knee- and waist-deep water. At one point he jokingly said, "A pair of webbed feet would have been useful."

I've been working on Ghosts Birds for the past three years—about a hundred zillion hours, give or take a million or two—with Jim's widow Nancy, who only lives a few miles from my house. Her home became my home away from home.

"Ghost Birds: Jim Tanner and the Quest for the Ivory-billed Woodpecker, 1935-1941" will be published in early fall by the University of Tennessee Press. It'll be available at Ijams Nature Center and other locations in the real and virtual marketplace.

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