Can you identify bur oaks at the entrance to MSP airport? Sue Leaf can. Come meet her at the Book Club Blast.

MinnPost: Tell us about your recent book release.

Sue Leaf:“The Bullhead Queen” (University of Minnesota Press) is a collection of essays set in Center City, MN, on Pioneer Lake.

The book explores the relationship between people and our non-human kin: birds, other mammals, insects, flowering plants -- how we regard them, how our actions affect them, and most importantly, what we owe them.

MP: Which writers have been the strongest influences on your own writing?  

SL: Paul Gruchow is the writer I most resonate with -- his keen insight into rural life and his sense of the sacred hidden in the folds of the natural world.

Also, Henry David Thoreau.

I replumb the depths of “Walden” every five years. I see new things in it as I age.

MP: What do you love most about living in Minnesota?

SL: I am deeply tied to the bur oaks, the white pines, the little blue stem grasses, and the sugar maples of the land that we call “Minnesota.”

As I get older, I am shocked by the brevity of Euro-American residence in the region, but I like being able to see evidence of our unsettled past wherever I go.

Does anyone else identify the bur oaks at the entrance to MSP airport?