Books

John Lane's first book of poems, first published by Briarpatch Press in 1992. This reprint has a new cover by Mark Olencki.

Reviews & Blurbs

John Lane enjoys a varied career as writer: poet, screenwriter, essayist, short story writer and editor. But the Spartanburg resident is, first and foremost, a serious writer of poetry. A new collection by Lane is reason to celebrate… a volume of poetic sensitivity and imagination that gets high marks.

The State (Columbia, SC)

John Lane may be the best argument against Thomas Wolfe's edict— "you can't go home again"— to come along in the second half of this American century. And as one of the most visibly documented, well-traveled writers of the younger generation, Lane, against all odds, has returned home to "the real work," and is doing just fine. Just read the book. Is this the voice of someone who is lost?

Greenline (Asheville, NC)

In loss be gentle sorrow? In John Lane's poems there is room for both praise and quiet lamenting… Lane creates images both powerful and tender… He is a rising star on the literary scene, one whose work to watch for, but most of all to read.

The Pilot (Southern Pines, NC Reviewed by Sam Ragan) 

Edited by John Lane and Betsy Teter

This is the book that has been featured in The Utne Reader, Orion Afield and Brightleaf, a book that is showing cities and towns across the United States how to foster a sense of community through literature. Though Hub City is about one Southern town, it also has a much larger context. It's a book about a boomtown community seeking to find its voice in the face of enormous changes. The essays in the book are, among other subjects, about places lost, life in the suburbs, weird religion, threatened greenspaces, the county fair, family reunions, racism, and yes, of course, trains. The work of photographers and artists also are included in a full-color section of the book.

Reviews and Blurbs

The Charlotte Observer, May 1996

This is a carefully constructed, lively anthology with both words and pictures to enjoy and ponder.

Point Magazine, April 1996

Hub City is bringing the dream of community back into the body of industrial sleep.

Before the novel and the film Deliverance appeared in the early 1970s, any outsiders one met along the Chattooga River were likely serious canoeists or anglers. In later years, untold numbers and kinds of people have felt the draw of the river’s torrents, which pour down the Appalachians along the Georgia–South Carolina border. Because of Deliverance the Chattooga looms enigmatically in our shared imagination, as iconic as Twain’s Mississippi—-or maybe Conrad’s Congo. This is John Lane’s search for the real Chattooga—-for the truths that reside somewhere in the river’s rapids, along its shores, or in its travelers’ hearts. At the end of his run, Lane leaves us still fully possessed by the Chattooga’s mystery, yet better informed about its place in his world and ours.

Reviews & Blurbs

From Publishers Weekly

This extended personal narrative by poet and author Lane (Waist Deep in Black Water) focuses on the Chattooga River, which runs along the border of Georgia and South Carolina. Having previously explored the river, Lane returns to journey the entire length of it, describing its natural beauty and danger as well as pausing to view it through the prism of Dickey's book. In the best parts, Lane artfully applies his poetic sensibility to the river itself… Lane's own writing and observations are good enough to stand outside of Dickey's considerable shadow.

Richard Bangs, author of The Lost River and founder of Sobek Expeditions

"His writing is charged, alive, a little threatening, as he guides us down unexplored waters."

George P. Garrett, author of Going to See the Elephant

"John Lane is the gifted author who earns our attention and our praise."

Philip Lee Williams, author of Crossing Wildcat Ridge

"This book is a gem—beautifully conceived and written."

The magnificent trees of Upcountry South Carolina are on display in this coffee table book of beautiful photography, from the stately hemlocks of Chattooga Country to the ancient American elms of Enoree. Here, also, renowned plant professor Michael A. Dirr articulates his Noble Tree vision: preserving these green giants and replanting the region with "trees for the ages." Alongside him, poet John Lane uses forests and yards as his inspiration, turning their tulip poplars, their cottonwoods, even their "Sequioa" redwoods into memorable characters in his verse.

John Lane has scaled a granite dome in the Suriname rain forest and waded past cottonmouths in the heart of a Florida cypress swamp. He has shadowed crocodiles in a Yucatán mangrove thicket and paddled the rapids of North Carolina's Tuckaseegee River in search of a drowned kayaker. Waist Deep in Black Water offers a collection of Lane's writings, which range in topic from wilderness exploration, to conservation, to family history in Spartanburg, South Carolina.

Reviews & Blurbs

Kirkus Reviews

"Lane has a fluid eye in a 'world where time moves in more than one direction …"

Southern Living

"For those seeking escape from the crush of contemporary times, this book leads to sanctuary."

Edited by John Lane and Gerald Thurmond

The Woods Stretched for Miles gathers essays about southern landscape and nature from nineteen writers with geographic or ancestral ties to the region. This remarkable group encompasses not only such well-known names as Wendell Berry and Rick Bass but also distinctive new voices, including Christopher Camuto, Susan Cerulean, and Eddy L. Harris.

Reviews & Blurbs

From Publishers Weekly
Mingling environmental concerns, naturalist observation and appreciation of the South's distinctive landscape and culture, this adventurous anthology is full of indelible forays deep into nature, the American South and ecology. Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

The first conscious collection of satirical poems from the Information Superhighway.

Reviews & Blurbs

"For any who might have doubted that the human brain is the most explosively articulate of expert systems or feared that the best minds of our re-generation are being devoured by the Internet, this is the howl of the 90s, a poetic rallying cry for humane technology." —Benjamin Dunlap

Weed Time is John Lane's first book of personal essays. I spent a year living in a cabin outside of Cherokee, North Carolina, and Weed Time is a chronicle of my first stab at a settlement narrative. It was published by Briarpatch Press in 1993 and then reprinted by Holocene. The cover is by Mark Olencki.

Reviews & Blurbs

One of South Carolina's finest writers, Lane has built his reputation as a poet. In this handsome little collection, he turns to the essay form, though the poet's sensibility is still strongly evident. Lane… writes them with grace and thoughtfulness.

The State (Columbia, SC) Review by William Starr