Welcome! I am a writer, editor, and workshop leader based in New England. I explore people’s relationship to their landscapes. I hope you will stay here a while and sign up for one of my Writing from Nature workshops.

My next book is a memoir of my evolution as a wilderness trekker, from following others to taking my daughters to going alone. It comes out next year from Appalachian Mountain Club Books.

I always wondered about my grandfather who decided to leave farming after his family had done it for 200 years. I am researching and writing a long piece and I hope a book about what would have happened if Grandpop had stayed. I have contributed a chapter in a book for Rutgers University Press (coming out soon) about New Jersey’s environmental past. The chapter explore struggles of small farmers in southern New Jersey at the dawn of the industrial age. 

I am the editor in chief of  Appalachia journal (submit button at the bottom of the page). 

I teach at the University of Connecticut. 

Libertarians on the Prairie, my book about the lives and collaboration of Laura Ingalls Wilder and her daughter, has established itself in scholarship of the mysterious and gripping “Little House” books. I talk about limited government and the Little House books in this episode of Sean Braswell’s podcast, “Flashback.” 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.