Hi, kids. This weekend has been crazy bizzy and I haven’t been the lovely blog hostess that I tend to be (HA HA!).
I’m finally able to sit down and give you a reading tip.
As some of you know, I read a lot of nonfiction and different magazines. I came across this essay in High Country News, a bimonthly western-based news magazine, called “Ghosts, Walking” by author Craig Childs.
It’s a painfully beautiful essay about a walk across the Navajo Nation. Here’s a taste of Childs’ absolutely delicious prose:
We change the way we move, try to make ourselves invisible, traveling away from animal trails through a busted topography of fallen cliffs and deeper canyons. In the evening, I walk by myself along a canyon made of soaring rock and massive columns of fir. It is last light, and the forest looks pointillist, nothing solid enough to seem real. I reach a water hole, punch through the ice, fill my bottles. Loping back to camp with fresh supplies, shadows grow thick and I move faster. Everything has eyes.
Here’s the link to “Ghosts, Walking.”
The essay garnered some controversy.
This author was not happy that Childs trespassed across Navajo land. You’ll see that letter plus Childs’ response at the link.
Writers like Childs collapse boundaries between built world and wild, between human and nonhuman, and allow us to feel the sting of wind, hear the eerie hoot of an owl echo off canyon walls, and feel the weight of time and history. And he makes us think about land and how we define it. So get a taste of Childs with this essay, and then maybe try some of his book-length works. Reading him is a sensory experience.
Happy reading, happy writing, happy Sunday!
Andi Marquette 