End of the year message, and happy holidays to all of you

Hi everyone, and thank you so much for your continuing support and messages and commentary from all over the place including, most recently, Latvia. I appreciate it. Just wanted to ask for your patience. My year-end hibernation is coming up.  I am heading toward a summer turn-in deadline for my new book, the same nonfiction project that has taken me into the Everglades and into the High Peaks of the Adirondacks, and also into the Sierra Nevada. And yes, this is the same project that involved a bare-naked campout in mountain lion territory that you’ve probably heard about by now. Gives me the chills just thinking about that one. When the time is right, I’ll tell you all about that, too.  I am now getting myself ready for what could be the last research campout for this book — although there is a chance I’ll add yet another one in…

Straight out of Santa Cruz: Elizabeth McKenzie’s story in the New Yorker

Our friend, the talented fiction writer Elizabeth McKenzie, the author of a well-received novel as well as a story collection, showed a short story to our writing group out in Santa Cruz early this fall. It gave me chills; reading it was a waking dream, and I could not stop thinking about it afterwards. Her story made me think about families and the way nostalgia and loss can warp the way we view the past. It also made me think about the way writers cannibalize memories. Anyway, after reading it, I thought, “wow, if only the world could see this story.” Well, now it can. The story, “The Savage Breast,” appears in this week’s New Yorker magazine. Congratulations, Lisa, and here is a nice review that just rolled in from the literary blogosphere. The author of this piece is Majnun Ben-David. And if you’re thinking that you’re about to hear more from this…

My first-ever interview about my post-Cactus Eaters book covering bare-naked camping and much more

The talented arts writer (and fiction and nonfiction writer) Wallace Baine interviewed me recently about my nonfiction book-in-progress for Henry Holt & Co.  I’ve been keeping mum about a lot of this, and trying, (to quote a former roommate), “not to let the cat out of the bottle” so it was fun to talk about this with him. Here is the story.  This is not a camping guidebook — although I will share some ideas and suggestions — but an affectionate look into camping’s strange and beguiling past. http://cactuseaters.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default