Writing Life
I Came So far for Beauty
Beth Surdut, winner of the 2013 Tucson Festival of Books Literary Award for Non-Fiction for Listening to Raven, specializes in illustrating animal nature in words and drawings.
Since July 2015, she has created, exhibited, and performed The Art of Paying Attention illustrated nature radio series heard and seen on NPR/Arizona Spotlight/Arizona Public Media.
In 2019, her tropical noir mystery storyThe Shirt Designer was a fiction finalist in the TFOB Master's Competition. It is being developed into a full length book.
Surdut continues to write for Desert Leaf Magazine, including her work as a photographer in the October 2022 feature article on Agua Caliente Park. After celebrating over 42 artists in profiles created for the monthly Desert Leaf Magazine in Tucson, AZ, she recognized that her time and energy is best served in her work as an artist, naturalist, and environmental educator who researches, writes, and tells stories about the wild lives around us. She does write about the arts, on occasion, however her final monthly L'Art Pour L'Art profile column appeared in the Feb 2021 issue.
As a journalist, Surdut has covered topics ranging from sewers to senators: town government, sneaky pollution, personality profiles, kayaking, beekeeping, Native American Graves Repatriation—the works. Quirky favorite Critical Mass:Mining War for Art: Ken Hruby originally appeared in ArtsMedia Magazine. she has covered the gamut from sewers to senators, beekeepers to Buddhists, and, so as not to get lost in alliteration...
a plane crash, Pakistani terrorism expert (unrelated to the plane crash), ignominious Cardinal, homophobic teacher,
a psychic tearoom, bird banding, mycology, grave robbing, wildlife management, sludge plant (not the government, the real thing), pollution, adoption,
an unsolved murder, small town government and all the boards, committees, and complaints---still with me?
Madrid, New Mexico's iconoclastic cemetery,
theater, music, visual art, books and countless profiles celebrating the creative spirits who bring us all that magic.
The adventures of Raven woman aka Gator Girl (three years happily paddling amidst alligators and vultures) are mixed with art, political commentary, and lessons according to Darwin on who not to date atwww.surdut.blogspot.com
Listening To Raven series of illustrations and stories. Orion Magazine Nov/Dec 2011.
Raven Tales & Illustrations-- Is That an Egg in Your Pocket, or are you just happy to see me Fall 2010 Zenchilada
Feast on Art From the Kitchen~Painted and Served by Beth Surdut in the food and culture magazine thezenchilada.com
Tales of Horseradish Wars and other Passover Traditions in issue #3 of The Zenchilada
Plein Air Fare-- Sublime patios and fabulous chefs in Santa Fe pages 98-101, Bienvenidos Magazine --read it and eat!
Marketplace, a hip way to hear what's happening in business five days a week, chose to air Beth Surdut's five-part series "RadioArt" commentaries that address attitudes about art and money. We don't just do it for love.
Hear Beth and explore alternative radioheads at http://www.transom.org NPR aired Identity Crisis, her response to the backlash that followed the terrorism of September 11. Sporty Girl, a commentary on a childhood lack of natural sporting ability aired on She Got Game (http://www.shegotgame.com).
Celebrate the creativity of others. Serving as Arts Editor, she's seen hopeful mediocrity and breathtaking resonance. Writing profiles for a small town newspaper led to producing the CD TALKING LIFE: WALTER HARROD'S STORIES, an oral history of an 85-year-old woodworker and teacher in a quintessential New England town.
As a PR goddess, she writes concise intriguing press releases that hit their target media more often than not.
Surdut's writing has been published in Orion Magazine, The Boston Globe, Honolulu Magazine, Desert Leaf Magazine, Cape Cod Life, Cape Cod Magazine, Antiques and Arts, artsMedia, Middlesex Beat, Point South, Nashoba Publications, Hebrew College, Fitchburg State College, Downtown and Beyond, Bienvenidos (Santa Fe New Mexican) and many more.
Eye of the heron
Black-crowned Night Heron, the landscape around the lake reflected in his eyes, has stores within stories. My photograph, awarded First Place in the Plants & Animals category, is on display at Sahuarita Town Hall, Arizona.
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