image: wedding 5, is used with permission of the artist, Cynthia Yatchman. All rights reserved.

Welcome to woodlands!

This exquisite issue of fws features the work of forty-nine writers, poets, and artists from across the United States, Canada, and Latin America. Here you will find nature writing at its finest from accomplished and beginning writers, many of whom have myriad publications and award credits to their names.

Here writers broach subjects both heavy and lighthearted: communion with ghosts and how to safely remove them; dancing naked in the moonlight; which toads are bumpy and which are smooth and which are now extinct; frog songs, unsolved mysteries; enchanted bridges; how slowly some things grow; tree worship; the desire for and practice of oneness; trees that speak & encircle sacred space; otherworldly energetic interventions; death; longing; aging; and rejuvenation. And all of this in the company of birdsong, long dark nights, starlight and galaxies spinning: …whorls…spirals speak of immortality (Wold, M.).

With this issue, fws comes to you here as a PDF rather than being written directly on this page. This is for two reasons: 1) It’s easier. 2) To enable anyone to download and print the manuscript in its entirety. Please feel free to do so. Or, you can read the document here by simply scrolling through it.

Please note that contributor bios can be found in the last few pages of the manuscript.

If you love woodlands enough to want to hold it in your hand as a book or give it as a gift, please look for the forthcoming soon, soft cover, perfect bound edition on Amazon or get a signed copy from your favorite contributor. I’ll post the link here when it’s ready!

In the meantime, brew some strong black coffee or herbal tea as you so desire. Get your favorite socks and blanket. Curl up in your favorite reading chair & prepare to be enchanted!

Thank you, Dear Reader, for reading.

Namaste,

d