As a kid, I was a follower. I rarely had a sense of where I was on a trail except to tag along and for years looked for agency in the wrong places, like dance class. Then, in my early twenties I began my outdoors journey in earnest, soon falling in love with the mountains.
Over the course of a tearful Appalachian Trail thru-hike and a few thousand more miles, I pledged I would teach my two daughters the resilience that I had gained too slowly… and so took them on a seven-year quest full of debacles, danger, and laughs.
Another decade on, I decided I needed to explore alone for a while to discover every facet of myself and my relationship to the world. The rough-hewn, grubby feminism that developed over the course of this personal and professional time in these wild places changed me, and maybe my daughters, forever.
Book launch event: Breakwater Books, Guilford, Connecticut, Sunday, September 10 at 5 p.m. Breakwater Books has been a great friend to my projects since 2016. It’s now under new ownership! Come hear me read, buy copies, and see my old camping pot, water pump, and the Marmot brand magenta fleece jacket I wore throughout my Appalachian Trail thru-hike back in 1987!
Book reading in Vermont: Norwich Bookstore, Wednesday, September 13 at 7 p.m. I look forward to meeting my friends in the upper Connecticut River Valley at this wonderful independent store.
