Dear readers, I’m pleased to share with you an essay of mine that was a finalist in Terrain.org‘s third annual writing contest. Terrain is an online lit journal that celebrates the intersection between nature and the human-mediated world. My submission, “The Hawk Lady,” was published in issue 31, which debuted yesterday, January 15.

Those of you have read my book Fat of the Land: Adventures of a 21st Century Forager will recognize the essay’s setting—the Rogue River Canyon of southwestern Oregon, where I spent a year off the grid with my family, a sabbatical away from the city that inspired both the book and this essay. So while it’s not about foraging, per se, this piece is very much a part of what I’m doing now and my interest in our relationship with the wild.