Edward Abbey

Her memoir, Trespass, Living at the Edge of the Promised Land, received the Orion Book Award and the Colorado Book Award.

Her second book, Desert Cabal, A New Season in the Wilderness, is a feminist response to Edward Abbey's Desert Solitaire.

And during lockdown, Pam Houston and Irvine co-authored the epistolary Air Mail, Letters of Politics, Pandemics, and Place.

Irvine's essays have appeared in both The Best American Science and Nature Writing and The Best American Food Writing, as well as Orion, Outside, High Country News, Lit Hub, and Backpacker.

I mean, I was so deeply conditioned to fit my narrative into something that was acceptable.

And many men really loved my first memoir because I think I was writing from that place.

But writing Desert Cabal, talking back to Edward Abbey, who, while he's a beautiful writer and he greatly influenced my world and my experience of the natural world, was a total misogynist and racist.

And so I wanted to like push back on how my experience in the wilderness was different from his.

And I think when you're done, I think a reader is left with a lot of inspiration for a lot of different ways to get outside that are not about selfie cameras or GoPros or... energy drinks or sponsored content it's just like doing it because it's the only thing we can do so it's a long-winded way of saying it's a book that I was really I really enjoyed putting together

well it's I it's very exciting and it's got beyond the the many creators that you've uh had at that gazette over the years you've got big names like huntress thompson royal robbins uh edward abbey and um it's it's a another beautiful piece that will look good in your living room as well uh mountain gazette is available at mountaingazette.com as is uh print ain't dead and we'll share links uh in the description for this episode mike this has been fantastic thanks so much for being here thank you so much for having me Thanks again to Mike Rogge for joining us.

Head over to mountaingazette.com if you're interested in Mountain Gazette magazine or the Print Ain't Dead anthology.

Again, it's just a wonderful, wonderful magazine and you're supporting artists, journalists, writers, all of the above and independent publishing.

I know I've referred to this quote a few times, even with my clients.

There's a great Edward Abbey quote that growth for the pure sake of growth is cancer.

Yeah.

You know, like it's not, it's the same mentality as a cancer cell.