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Book Talk October 15 at Bank Square Books
Save the date. I will give a talk and reading from my wilderness memoir Going Over the Mountain at the new location of Bank Square Books, 80 Stonington Road, Mystic, Connecticut, on Tuesday, October 15 at 6 p.m. Going Over the Mountain: One Woman's Journey from...
I’ll be on Hiker Trash Radio June 3
Pick up your favorite trail snacks and get ready to hear my hiking story on Hiker Trash Radio, the podcast where Doc introduces you to all sorts of characters who have taken the trail into themselves and become different people in the process. The episode with me...
Going Over the Mountain reading at Wesleyan RJ Julia Bookstore
Join me for my next reading from Going Over the Mountain, Wednesday, October 18 from 5-6 p.m. at Wesleyan R.J. Julia Bookstore! Sign up here. Get your own copy and have it signed. I will read you a story. A chapters other audiences haven't heard yet. I've read to...
Launch party on September 10 at Breakwater Books. Reading September 13 at the Norwich Bookstore in Vermont
Breakwater Books will host a launch party on Sunday, September 10 at 5 p.m. at their store at 18 Whitfield Street in Guilford, Connecticut. Thank you, Breakwater! The Norwich Bookstore will host my next reading and talk on September 13 starting at 7...
News
Welcome! I am a writer, editor, and college lecturer based in New England. I explore people’s relationship to their landscapes. I hope you will stay here a while and get to know my work.
My new book Going Over the Mountain traces my evolution as a wilderness trekker. I followed others. I tried to teach my daughters resilience. I went alone. I came back to community. It came out in September 2023 from Appalachian Mountain Club Books. Order one direct from the publisher here.
I am doing some writing about the hard lives of New Jersey farmers in the twentieth century. I wrote a chapter in a book for Rutgers University Press (coming out soon) about New Jersey’s environmental past.
I am the editor-in-chief of Appalachia journal (submit button at the bottom of the page).
I teach journalism history at the University of Connecticut.
Libertarians on the Prairie tells how a secret collaboration on the Little House books reshaped the nineteenth-century American frontier story into a series of heroic tales that rebutted the policies of the New Deal. Libertarians on the Prairie is available in hardback and a paperback edition with a Foreword by Stephen Heuser. Order one today.
Going back in time a bit: I appeared in Don Bernier’s 2005 film, “In a Nutshell,” about a brilliant, eccentric artist who found herself homeless in her 90s. A clip here.
Writing Workshops
New routes to new ideas
Libertarians on the Prairie
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Going Over the Mountain
Order your copy or e-book today! Going Over the Mountain is a gorgeous tale of finding strength—and peace—in the mountains, and of raising girls to do the same. It’s a reflection on entering the woods as a follower, a solo traveler, a parent, and in community, for...
The Bears Next Door: Back Bears in Connecticut
A short walk from a suburban driveway in Canton, Connecticut, a black bear and her cub sleep in their den, a shallow depression in leaf duff underneath a small brush pile and a few downed trees. State biologists Jason Hawley and Melissa Ruszczyk and technicians...
To Hear a Forest
One warm morning I took a break while hiking near Cardigan Mountain. I sat on a tent platform in an empty campsite and swung my boots over the platform edge. The leaves began to rustle, first faintly, then louder and louder, the way they do when the wind kicks up. I...
Strangers Helping in a Most Respectful Way
Wild ponies in the Grayson Highlands, southern Virginia. One hot July afternoon earlier this summer, my husband Nat and I were huffing up the Marlborough Trail on Mount Monadnock in southwestern New Hampshire. I spotted four men above me, heading down. I pulled myself...
A Deadly Mix for Boaters: Distractions, Alcohol and No Life Jacket
On a warm, slightly overcast Sunday afternoon last August 8, boaters near the Salmon River boat launch on the Connecticut River in East Haddam noticed a personal watercraft drifting without a rider. Less than an hour later, state environmental police recovered a man’s...
