Confessions of a Recovering Environmentalist

by Paul Kingsnorth

Once noble and redemptive, environmentalism has devolved into an engine of consumerism and a platform for partisanship.

Night Shift

by Luis Alberto Urrea

The brown trouts, Sno Balls, and stray cats lent a faux nature vibe to this home-away-from-home.

Announcing the 2011 Orion Book Award Winner

Cloudy Is the Stuff of Stones

by Anthony Doerr

Looking into the eyes of pebbles, in search of some immutable truth.

Spectral Light

by Amy Irvine

When the boundaries between predator and prey, wild and tame, black and white, become blurred.

Acorn Bread

by Joni Tevis

"It is good to return to a familiar place and find something sowed with a generous hand."

Walks around the World

by Tomas Espedal, Manik Datar, Homero Aridjis, Saİt Faİk Abasiyanik, and Yuri Rytkheu

A good walk is a conversation between the walker and the environment, and here we present five "walk" pieces in translation, fiction and nonfiction, by Tomas Espedal, Manik Datar, Homero Aridjis, Sait Faik Abasıyanık, and Yuri Rytkheu, published in collaboration with the online magazine for international literature Words without Borders.

Out West

by Joe Wilkins

Growing up in eastern Montana makes you hard -- and not necessarily in a good way.

On Coming Back as a Buzzard

by Lia Purpura

The beautiful necessity of an appetite for all things.

The Trumpet of the Swan

by Kim Todd

Childhood memories withstand the test of time, but a fragile species may be another story.

Oracle in the Desert

Text and photographs by Craig Childs

A retired cop wanders the canyons of Arizona looking for redemption. Plus AUDIO of the author reading this article.

Kidding Season

by Lydia Peelle

A story of flight and forgetting, punctuated by a flock of goats.
EXCERPT

Underfoot Earth Turns

by Gary Snyder

A spiritual journey through both topography and time.
EXCERPT

To the Dairy Queen and Back

by John Landretti

A familiar journey can be anything but, if you pay it the proper attention.

Fairy Tales of the Atomic Age

by Joni Tevis

A trip through the looking glass at a Tennessee tourist attraction.

The Greatest Nature Essay Ever

by Brian Doyle

. . .would begin with an image so startling and lovely and wondrous that you would stop. . .

Notes from a Very Small Island

by Erik Reece

One man, one tin cup, one canoe, and an exegesis on the difference between merely existing and truly being in this world.

With This Ring

by Fred Pearce

A Window

by Hank Lentfer

Connecting to the world

Ladder to the Pleiades

by Michael P. Branch

Wishing for a ladder tall enough to reach the stars...

Once Upon a Turtle Moon

by Roger Pinckney, with photographs by Jason Houston

Off the coast of South Carolina, they've got some pretty peculiar rituals surrounding the effort to save loggerheads

Summer of the Bagworm

by Justin Robertson

In which one man wages a scorched-earth campaign to defend three measly trees

Pastures of Plenty

by Matt Rasmussen

Woody Guthrie was enamored of the Columbia River dams when they were being built. What would he think of them now?

Roadkill: How to Make a Great First Impression

by Nick Neely

Roadkill etiquette

On Being Loopy

by Mark Schimmoeller