might be the word.  Susan Zakin began her career as a police reporter on a daily newspaper in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey, known as the place Mafia hit men dump bodies -- and for the remarkable sound, like a jet’s turbine, that the wind makes when it races through the dwarf pines.  Her environmental writing has been called brilliant, irreverent, and full of heart.  Today, she writes essays and fiction, and teaches.  She is based in New York and Kenya.