How (Not) to Give a Wedding Gift
What does a Nature lover and adventure writer gift to friends for their wedding? It may not be what you think. The next installment in the How (Not) To series is a little funny, a little serious, and all good. Names and deets have been changed to protect the innocent.
In Through the Out Door: How Going Out Into Nature Leads Us In to Our Truest Selves
Why do people go outside? I mean, besides the obvious, like having to go to work or move from the house to some other point in the world. What draws […]
Lightning Lessons in Writing: How to Use the Comma
All too often, inexperienced writers view, or worse, use, the comma as a pause in a sentence. While it’s true that we pause at commas, as we would any mark […]
How to Interpret Dreams
Last night I had the strangest dream. I was driving in an SUV, ran over a lovely flower bed on some private land and momentarily got stuck in a man-made […]
Walking Through it All: Reviewing Ben Montgomery’s ‘Grandma Gatewood’s Walk’
In Ben Montgomery’s eye-opening profile, Grandma Gatewood’s Walk: The Inspiring Story of the Woman Who Saved the Appalachian Trail, readers encounter the real life folk heroin Emma Gatewood. On the […]
Lightning Lessons in Writing: How to Improve Overnight
This “lightning lesson” in grammar, a super short but very helpful lesson on how to write clearly and correctly, won’t make you the next Shakespeare or Hemingway. It will, however, […]
How to Write Anything (Part III)
In parts one and two of this mini-series on writing I discussed crafting an essay with a particular audience in mind, choosing a genre and writing with purpose, followed by […]
How to Write Anything (Part II)
In part one of this “how-to” mini-series I discussed some of the broader aspects of the initial stages of the writing process. In that essay I covered genre, audience and […]
How to Write Anything (Part I)
Writing is contentious. As someone who works in higher ed., I ought to know. Looking around the country at different universities and colleges it’s easy to notice some interesting structures […]
A Monster Hike: Arethusa Falls and Frankenstein Cliffs
I had to stop to breathe; this mountain was kicking my ass. The slopes at the base of the cliffs were talused, debris-filled, and more resembled sand than soil. Trees […]
Mountain Buddha: The Origin Story
I never pictured myself as a blogger. After graduate school, most of the writing I did, when I did it, revolved around literary criticism. That was the original plan: get […]
Why Climbing Matters
As a brief note, this article often uses the term climbing in a broad sense to include everything from rock climbing to mountaineering and hiking. As I rediscover climbing in […]
In the beginning…
First Blog Post! It’s humbling to think as I sit here and write this that I’m participating in a tradition that includes such names as Wendell Berry, Aldo Leopold, […]
