Author, anthologist and recording artist Thomas Rain Crowe spent the first portion of his professional life as a poet. He was one of the Baby Beats and a friend of Gary Snyder. He returned to his native North Carolina in the 1980s to rediscover the blessings and inspirations he could find at home. During the same decade, he became the founding editor of “Katuah Journal: A Bioregional Journal of the Southern Appalachians” and also founded New Native Press. Since then, an experiment in self-sufficient wilderness living inspired “Zoro’s Field: My Life in the Appalachian Woods,” which won the Southern Environmental Law Center’s Reed Award. Now living in in Cullowhee near the Great Smoky Mountains of western North Carolina, he continues to write articles covering environmental and cultural topics for The Smoky Mountain News and inspire people with his nature-based poetry and translations. He is also a board member of the Canary Coalition, a grassroots organization focused on air quality and environmental justice.
