“I think that I shall never see/a poem as lovely as a tree. Nor a book as beautifully rendered as Bill Guion’s Return to Heartwood. In equal measure homage and elegy, Heartwood is both a stunning visual time capsule of the ancient live oaks that grace the south Louisiana landscape and a collection of essays that poetically capture why these majestic trees are indispensable to our culture and our imaginations.”
– Ken Wells, Novelist, author of Swamped, Gumbo Life, and Meely LaBauve

“Guion has done yeoman’s work to catalog and create beautiful, haunting images of the most spectacular live oaks in Louisiana. If only these amazing trees could talk, they would remind us mere humans that they are the true sentinels of our ecology, history, and identity as Louisianians. We should all be humbled by their presence.”
–  Sage Roberts Foley, Executive Director, Baton Rouge Green

“William Blake saw infinity in a grain of sand. Walt Whitman saw it in leaves of grass. William Guion sees it in oaks — and makes us see it. Through his decades of photographing these trees with an artist’s camera and a lover’s eye, he has penetrated to the sublime heart of their mystery and laid it bare for the rest of us.”
– Dean Sluyter, author of The Dharma Bum’s Guide to Western Literature

“In this heartfelt tribute to one man’s enduring love affair with a legacy of historically significant live oak trees inhabiting the great state of Louisiana, William Guion has woven a visually compelling and intellectually engaging portrait of life and light that ventures well beyond the ordinary.”
– Huntington Witherill, West Coast photographer and instructor

“Wherever an old oak grows, there are stories to be found. And with his photographs, Bill Guion manages to capture not only the sinuous, twisting giants of coastal Louisiana, but also the centuries’ worth of human history that have played out beneath their branches.”
– James Fox-Smith, Publisher, Country Roads Magazine

“Bill Guion’s newest book, Return to Heartwood, is a remarkable paean to our beloved live oaks. Bill’s evocative photographs are like poetry without words and his stories will delight and inspire all oak lovers.” 
– Britton Trice, Owner, B. E. Trice Publishing, Former Owner Garden District Book Shop