HEATHER DURHAM returns to Peterborough to sign and discuss GOING FERAL: FIELD NOTES ON WONDER AND WANDERLUST. Raised in the Monadnock Region and an Antioch NE graduate, Heather has a produced a collection of deeply personal and intellectually curious essays that explore wild America weaving the unique perspectives of a trained ecologist, inquisitive philosopher, and restless nomad. She wanders from New England vernal pools to Pacific Northwest salmon runs, Rocky Mountain pine forests to Desert Southwest sage flats in search of adventure, solace, authenticity, and belonging in the more-than-human world. Part scientifically-informed nature writing, part soul-searching memoir, Going Feral is the story of a human animal learning to belong to the earth. Two of the essays are set in the woods of Peterborough!
Going Feral: Field Notes on Wonder and Wanderlust is an examination of a life of wandering in wild nature. With the scientific knowledge and observation skills of an ecologist and the existential inquiry of a philosopher, Heather immerses readers with all their senses in adventures, wanderings, and musings in wild places around the United States. She faces solitude on a deserted island in Maine, spelunks in bat caves in New Hampshire, chases herons on the Florida Gulf coast, and hides out with flamingos in urban Utah. She locks eyes with a cougar in Colorado, traps and bands hawks in Nevada, surveys owls in Oregon, and communes with coyotes in Washington.
As a nomadic and often reclusive introvert, Heather grapples with discomfort among her own kind and resists traditional paths to fulfillment. It is ultimately her intimate bond with the natural world wherever she roams that offers meaning, solace, and a sense of belonging both within and apart from human communities. Part reverential nature writing, part soul-searching memoir, Going Feral is the story of a human animal learning to belong to the earth.
Heather Durham holds a Master of Science in Environmental Biology from Antioch New England University and a Master of Fine Arts from the Northwest Institute of Literary Arts. She’s held a variety of environmental jobs around the country from interpretive park ranger to field biologist, trails worker to restoration ecologist. She currently lives in the foothills of the Washington Cascades where she works behind the scenes at Wilderness Awareness School. When not working or writing, you are likely to find Heather reading other nature writers, birding, or hunkered down in a riverside cedar grove with a journal, field guide, and binoculars, remembering wildness.
