Gas wells meet wilderness

Gas wells meet wilderness

Forest floor in the old-growth patch called Heart’s Content. Photo by Chris Woodside In most forests in eastern North America, humans’ imprint has shaped the land beyond even what we can imagine. I have just returned from western Pennsylvania, where I visited...
Step forward onto the land: starting new writing

Step forward onto the land: starting new writing

Wind-formed trees hang onto a steep beach on outermost Cape Cod. Photo taken in January 2009. Wendell Berry knows Kentucky, where he has lived, written, and done some farming for most of his more than eight decades on earth. When one knows a place deeply, one writes...
Ideas come from trees

Ideas come from trees

Spruces on Cannon Mountain. Photo by Marcus Quigmire/Wikimedia commons I started walking in the woods as a way to write more honestly about 15 years ago, after my father died.  I already knew at that point that getting onto a forest path, alone, helped me sort out...
Studies!

Studies!

I’m not physically here. But I’ll go there sometimes. When’s a good time for graduate school? Right now. I’ve started a history master’s program at Arizona State University. The lectures and discussions are all online. I work out of my...
On paperback prefaces

On paperback prefaces

Laura Ingalls Wilder/Herbert Hoover Presidential Library I’m in my favorite retreat spot this week, Randolph, New Hampshire, holed up in front of a vista of Mount Madison and Mount Adams, writing a preface for the paperback edition of Libertarians on the...