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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

©2024 by Sarah T. Dubb

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