Ginger Strandis the author of three books: Flight, a novel, Inventing Niagara, the untold story of America’s waterfall, and Killer on the Road, a history of the interstate highway system told through the stories of the killers who have haunted it. She has published essays and fiction in many places, including Harper’s, The Believer, The Iowa Review, The New England Review and the New York Times, as well as This Land and Orion, where she is a contributing editor.
Ginger Strand

Feature

Empowered
If the zombie apocalypse comes, I’m heading to Burlington, Vermont. The state’s largest city sits on a huge freshwater lake, half a day’s drive from Boston, the nearest metropolis. Continue reading
Feature

Speed Freaks
WHEN I LEAVE THE PAVEMENT and hit the hard white of the Bonneville Salt Flats, I press the pedal to the metal on The Hummer. The speedometer hits 94, but that’s Continue reading
Feature

The Economics of Estuary
IN 1915, when my grandmother Mildred was a teenager, her older brother Ray left home and went west to find his fortune. His trail can be traced today by lining up Continue reading
Feature

Vanilla Sound
Richard Keil stands ankle-deep in the tidal flats below Seattle’s Magnolia Bluff, tugging some test strips from his backpack. The bluff rises gently behind him, and the rippled sand is slowly Continue reading
Feature

Beautiful Ruination
From the point of view of its dead, Braddock is a pretty nice town. The steeply terraced Monongahela Cemetery sits atop a hill from which the Pennsylvania mill town becomes a Continue reading
Feature

The Poetry of Power
IN THE SCRUBBY WOODS at the town limits of Peterborough, New Hampshire, there’s a deep trench carved in the forest floor. Climb into it and you’ll notice stone facing; this is Continue reading
Feature

The Crying Indian
IF YOU WATCHED television at any point in the seventies, you saw him: America’s most famous Indian. Star of perhaps the best-known public service announcement ever, he was a black-braided, buckskinned, Continue reading
Feature

A Swamp Forest Grows in Brooklyn
IT’S A BRIGHT SUNDAY MORNING during the fall migration in New York City. A small group convenes in Highland Park, a plateau of greenery straddling the border between Brooklyn and Queens. Continue reading
Feature

Zen and the Art of Compromise
“A rare wetland ecosystem is in immediate danger of development,” the wall in a small, square room at the Queens Museum of Art declares. “Help prevent environmental degradation by playing until Continue reading
Feature

What’s the Use of Pets?
AS YOU GLIDE DOWN OVER central Florida into Orlando International Airport, the Earth glitters up at you as if strewn with diamonds. The lush, landscaped grounds of the airport are ringed, Continue reading