“When I’m stuck in my writing, movement keeps me going. New Hampshire has forty-eight mountains that are taller than 4,000 feet. Throughout the process of writing my first book, I plotted routes to hike each mountain and convened with friends for those long walks. Eleven 4,000 Footers remain. Having a non-writing goal running concurrently with a writing project gives me something else to focus on. And in the idle, silent miles, listening to the tumble of the river on the way to Owl’s Head in the Pemigewasset Wilderness, or scrambling down from Mount Isolation, my mind can wander. Words come more easily when I’ve let my body do its work. There is no narrative knot that a long hike can’t loosen.”
—Devi Lockwood, author of 1,001 Voices on Climate Change: Everyday Stories of Flood, Fire, Drought, and Displacement From Around the World (Simon & Schuster, 2021)
Photo credit: Cheryle St. Onge