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Spring bursts out
We climbed two mountains in the Pliny Range of New Hampshire today. On the ridge, spring's arrival was creeping upward toward winter's exit. Low on the ridge, wildflowers reached away from the path. The red trillium is the most beautiful and amazing of them all. It...
Raining in Arizona
Hello everybody. Yesterday I graduated from Arizona State University with my master's degree in history. The program gave me so much. View my final Capstone portfolio here. Here I sit in Phoenix, looking out on a steady rain falling on the cacti. Soon I return to my...
Shoulder season
I waved away gnats, an instinct I haven't practiced since last October. I stepped over dried mud and looked at the sticks that would offer forth raspberries in a few months. Cataclysm has visited my life with the death of my mother last week from an unexpected, major...
Seven-hour Writing from Nature workshop March 30
Bushy Hill Lake knows more about the past than we might think. Once upon a time, it trickled as a stream at the bottom of this valley. Such changes offer a writer stories and symbols. (Pioneer Village end of the lake, mid-January 2019.) I am offering a seven-hour...
Fear of rattlesnakes
Biologist Tom Tyning scrambles up a ledge in Massachusetts, looking for rattlesnakes he will study in his lab and then return to the wild. The snakes are rare because poachers steal them and sell them illegally. (Photo by Christine Woodside) From Appalachia...
News
Christine Woodside is a writer and editor who writes about the history of ordinary Americans and the environment.
Chris is working on books about her wilderness travels and New Jersey tenant farmers. She edits Appalachia journal (submit button at the bottom of the page). She also edits environment stories for The Conversation US.
She earned her master’s degree in history in May 2019 from Arizona State University.
Libertarians on the Prairie, Chris’s 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. A new book called Reconsidering Laura Ingalls Wilder released in June 2019 mentions Chris’s work many times. Libertarians on the Prairie is available in hardback and a paperback edition with a Foreword by Stephen Heuser. Order one today.
Flashback: Chris appears throughout Don Bernier’s 2005 film, “In a Nutshell,” about a brilliant, eccentric artist who found herself homeless in her 90s. A clip here.
Listen to Chris tell a story at Connecticut Forest & Park Association’s wildlife story slam about running into a mama bear and her cubs.
Chris Woodside was born in Philadelphia into a large family at the tail end of the baby boom, grew up Princeton, New Jersey, studied American civilization at the University of Pennsylvania, and has worked as a journalist for a long time. Chris edits the mountaineering and conservation journal Appalachia. Read about her Appalachian Trail thru hike here.
Writing Workshops
Chris often teaches at writing workshops around New England. Watch this space for news of upcoming events.
Libertarians on the Prairie
by Chris Woodside read more
Libertarians on the Prairie
Laura Ingalls Wilder, left, and her daughter, Rose Wilder Lane, as they looked in the 1930s, when they worked on the "Little House" books Now available from your favorite outlet. Coming out in paperback in October 2017 Laura Ingalls Wilder, Rose Wilder Lane, and the...
Encounter with a hare
Lepus americanus. Photo by Walter Siegmund. Past midnight I awakened and crept behind the mountain shelter, over dry leaves behind the back wall. Wind rustled from the open ridge of Vermont’s Mount Tom toward the spruces. I wore my improvised headlamp, a flashlight on...
Trail of Memories
Heading up the Undermountain Trail with Talley. Photo by Julie Bidwell Yankee Magazine, March 2017 One bright Monday afternoon, I step onto the Undermountain Trail below Bear Mountain, in northwest Connecticut. I climb east. The trail rolls mostly straight up, but...
How “Little House on the Prairie” Built Modern Conservatism
Laura Ingalls Wilder, right, with her sisters Mary (seated) and Carrie circa 1881. Courtesy of the Laura Ingalls Wilder Home Association Politico Magazine, September 11, 2016 For 84 years, American kids have been growing up with Laura Ingalls Wilder’s...
The Disappeared Sandplains: 95 percent of them are gone
Sandplain in central Connecticut. Disturbed sand is from an all-terrain vehicle. Connecticut Woodlands, spring 2016 I trudge along a barren, sandy field, following a bespectacled, gray-bearded ecologist named Bill Moorhead. He steps carefully in his work boots over...
