AUTHOR’S NOTE— OR, WHY I WROTE A ROMANCE ABOUT BIRDING
This Author's Note appears at the of BIRDING WITH BENEFITS, published in 2024 by Gallery Books
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Many Sunday mornings of my childhood were spent on trails outside Tucson with my dad, naming the birds and plants we knew as we walked. What we lacked in gear and knowledge we made up for in sheer enthusiasm, always willing to pause on a dusty trail to watch a red-tailed hawk circle in the sky above.
Fast-forward twenty-five years. I’d left for a while, but I was back in Tucson as an adult. My second child was an infant when I found myself in an evening class called “Birds and Poems.” The class was a serendipitous combination of things I loved: a lens through which to look at the natural world, a meditation on the desert Southwest that I call home, a deep dive into words and language, and a place to write with abandon. And it made me a birder.
For a long time, I hesitated to call myself a birder, just as I still shy away from claiming the label of writer. Both feel too official, like titles too venerated to describe what I’m actually usually doing: fumbling along, looking up as I walk, seeking a story as I go. But really, both titles ask nothing more of us than intention and practice.
Most of my birding happens in my own habitat, where the birds I know best share a space with me. The sprawled mesquite trees and spiky palo verdes of my yard host Gila woodpeckers, verdins, broad-billed hummingbirds, white-winged doves, lesser goldfinches, and so many more. Occasionally, they all cry out at once, and I know when I look, I’ll find a Cooper’s hawk, stripes of copper across its compact chest, scanning the ground for anyone who might not be paying proper attention.
In 2020, during the pandemic, I was at home managing three kids through virtual schooling while embarking on graduate school myself. It should have been a hard time, and in truth it probably was, but I remember it like this: all of us in solidarity and shared unknowing, my own thinking expanding into new places, and watching a lot of birds in the yard. It was during this time that I was assigned to read a romance novel in a grad school class, and from there I was off, reading every happy ending I could get my hands on.
I consume romance novels for the same reason I watch birds—for the sparks of joy, because I prefer to be happy when the world gives us so many reasons to be sad. So when I, as so many others did, started writing that year, it seemed only natural that the romance I wrote should include birding. After all, what is love if not the thrill of discovery, the willingness to learn something new, and the desire to find magic in the world around us?
If you came to this book as a birder, I hope you leave a fan of
romance. And if you came as a romance reader, I hope you leave a birder. My website (www.SarahTDubb.com) has resources for those looking to start bird-watching, including some of my favorite books and advocacy organizations. You don’t need anything to become a birder—just intention and practice, and a willingness to look around. And when all else fails, remember John’s advice: Start with discovery, and go from there.