Author: Dan White

  I am honored to report that Under The Stars made this Travel & Leisure book list this week. T & L says: “Dan White uses his own love for the outdoor activity—whether on a treelined traffic divider near Skykomish, Washington, on the Pacific Crest Trail, or on a beautiful bluff in Point Reyes, California—to discuss the history of camping (it began, in fact, as a Victorian passion) and how the contributions of America’s greatest nature writers—from Thoreau to Muir—have changed our relationship to wilderness. Along the way are hilarious anecdotes, like the time White, buck naked, sat on a nest of yellow jackets. As he writes, “With camping you cannot hide.”

After a long and sweaty day of camping, it hard to imagine anything more bracing than a nice, gritty, sour cupful of orange-flavored Tang. But you can make this treat even more memorable if you mix powdered Tang with unbelievably hot water and then consume it immediately without giving it even one moment to cool. Here is an heirloom recipe for Hot Tang, developed by my family when we were camping out in Mammoth Lakes, California. This was the main drink in every one of my campouts from the late 1970s onward. Try it for yourself. Believe me: this is one campground drink you will never be able to forget. Hot Tang recipe: — Go to creek. Get water. Don’t worry if there are bugs, small pieces of grit and floaties in the water. Let them stay in there. They will add character and interesting texture to your Hot Tang. — Put unfiltered creek water in…

… then surely you will look back on whatever happens to you and laugh about it long and hard. For instance, last weekend, when I went camping on Mother’s Day, I set up an impermeable tarp beneath our tent, then a rainstorm came down, the water pooled in the tarp beneath our tent, and we all got flooded out! On the good side, this is one Mother’s Day that I will not soon forget. It will be etched in my memory forever. That’s one of the great things about sleeping under the stars. The memories remain in your head forever, and yet our recollections of discomfort and rushing around, bailing out our families and draping our rain-soaked undies on an oak bough to dry, tend to mellow out over time, like certain bottles of Bigfoot Barleywine. I look forward to getting out on the book trail, meeting you all, and…

My latest news is that Publisher’s Weekly ran a great review of Under The Stars that summed up the book far better than I could, being much too close to the material to sum it up in such an elegant way. And I just found out that the Huffington Post included Under The Stars in its list of six books that make Earth Day every day. And this just in: I found out that my Under The Stars book tour launch is going to take place at Bookshop Santa Cruz, right here in my hometown, on June 20. And please stay tuned for more updates. The official release date of the book is June 20. It will be available as a hardcover book (with my own illustrations) and also as an audiobook. It will, of course, also be available as an ebook. http://cactuseaters.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

hi everyone. Thanks for checking in again, and please forgive me for taking so long to respond to the messages that several of you left for me on Facebook. I didn’t realize that Facebook had been filtering my messages, and when I checked it recently, I discovered that there were Cactus Eaters related messages in there that had been hanging around unread since 2014! I just wanted to let you know that Under The Stars will be available June 14 in hardback and e-book form,  but it will also be coming your way very soon as an audio-book. Last week I had the exciting and surreal experience of choosing the voice actor who is going to ‘play’ me in the audio version.  In other news, I’m also very glad to report that several writers (including some whose books I have been reading for a very long while) have already read…

As a kind of warm-up for future readings, here is my very first podcast (of sorts) in which I talk briefly about my new book and describe a few of the insane situations that took place while I was researching it. (After you click on the above link, scroll down the page a bit and you’ll see the little ‘play’ button.) http://cactuseaters.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

The Cactus Eaters frequently asked questions First of all, I thank you for being curious enough about TCE to take a look at this.I’m putting this up there because I’m just about finished with updating this blog as i contemplate a website supporting my new book. So I might as well let this just linger up here on the blog for a while because new people keep checking up on this. This has been updated slightly. I should tell you right now that this contains some spoilers so stop reading right here if you haven’t finished the book. Every once in a while, I go in here and change the wording when I notice something clunky, unfinished, inflammatory, etc. Anyway, this wraps up my work on this blog. Thank you all for keeping the first book in print; I really appreciate that! What are you working on now? My book is…

Just found out about the pub. date. Will be reading a brief section from the book as part of the Reed Magazine event at October 17, 715 p.m. to 815 p.m. at The Balm at  788 Valencia Street, San Francisco, along with authors Daniel Arnold, Andrew Lam, Tommy Mouton, Julia Reynolds, Alan Soldovsky and Cathleen Miller. Here are all the details. Keep in camping on. http://cactuseaters.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

 Here is our candid conversation about everything from GMOs to Big Mac Attacks. She’s coming to Santa Cruz, by the way.  Alice Waters is a tireless advocate for sustainable foods—and she has never been shy about voicing strong opinions and taking principled stances, whether the subject is GMOs, dietary trends, or companies she believes are co-opting the language of the Slow Food movement but without the passion and commitment. During an informal Skype session, Waters spoke candidly about everything from affordable high-quality food to the essential role of young people in America’s “Delicious Revolution” and the need for vigilance when checking food labels at grocery stores.  Waters was in Rome at the time of the interview, working on a food-related project at the American Academy, a foundation for arts and scholars started at the turn of the last century. Waters will receive the Foundation Medal at the UC Santa Cruz’s Founders…

Next Friday (June 5) I will be reading for the first time from my book in progress, Under the Stars, which will come to you courtesy of Henry Holt & Co next summer. The reading will be part of a wonderful party with wine and small plates (the whole bit) to mark the release of Catamaran Literary Reader’s summer magazine, which contains a piece of writing that I am adapting into a chapter of my book.  The event takes place at the Radius Gallery in Santa Cruz. The chapter I will be reading is called “Wild Victorian Ladies” about wild women adventurers who wrote wilderness memoirs more than a century before Cheryl Strayed’s Wild became a hit. The chapter has a beginning and a middle but it still needs an ending — so if you come to the reading and have suggestions for an ending, I will be in your…