Note from the editor

Riverness delves into the aesthetics, ecology, and protection of rivers, and centers its focus on Florida's Apalachicola River. This exploration grew out of a years-long journey along many inland and tidal rivers, through lakes, Great and small, down coastlines, and through salt and freshwater marshes in the eastern halves of the United States and Canada. Most striking about that experience was the paucity of rivers existing only as rivers and not as some instrumentality of human "progress." I wound up settling along the Apalachicola River, near its mouth. While its headwaters have been heavily exploited, the Apalachicola itself is still rich, wild, and unsettled. But, it's among the most endangered rivers on the continent. Riverness is therefore about understanding wildness, and learning why we must let it be.