Author Gemma Whelan expands her idea of home.
Essays
Posted inApril 1, 2023: The Path Forward
What a piece of climbing equipment can teach us about creating community outdoors
From GRIGRI to gris-gris.
Posted inArticles
What happens without warning
How a California ash embodies new information in a long friendship.
Posted inMarch 1, 2023: Moving Parts
A demonstration of Black bodies in nature
‘Our family trip to Yosemite has given me access to places I subconsciously felt weren’t home to me.’
Posted inMarch 1, 2023: Moving Parts
Luck and life in pronghorn country
‘Since I was a little girl, on the first day of every month, the first words out of my mouth are rabbit rabbit.’
Posted inFebruary 1, 2023: The Reveal
Tending a remnant of home
How a glass shelf connected a woman to what mattered most.
Posted inFebruary 1, 2023: The Reveal
Foods harvested throughout the seasons make up a wintertime meal
An Inupiaq writer describes the fellowship and delight of a Native supper.
Posted inJanuary 1, 2023: Ripple Effects
Growing up queer in Colorado Springs
In the wake of the Club Q mass shooting, reflections on an adolescence in the ‘Evangelical Vatican.’
Posted inDecember 1, 2022: Beyond Illusion
Rooting a new life under a juniper tree
‘Trees know about belonging.’
Posted inDecember 1, 2022: Beyond Illusion
What emerges at low tide
Queer history is all around us, even if it is obscured from sight.
Posted inDecember 1, 2022: Beyond Illusion
Making Christmas cake in Compton
Reviving a family tradition eases holiday grief.
Posted inNovember 1, 2022: The Futures of Conservation
Antidotes for ecological forgetfulness
Bear witness, make a record, pass it on.
Posted inOctober 1, 2022: Making Refuge
Recollecting life on the edge of the prairie
Portraits of queer life and landscape in rural Washington.
Posted inSeptember 1, 2022: Going Under
On the road, a taste of home
The Saini family’s Punjabi dhabas serve ‘good vibes only.’
Posted inSeptember 1, 2022: Going Under
The anxiety and satisfaction of race day
A writer traces the motivations that led her to run a half-marathon on the California coast.
Posted inJuly 1, 2022: Living with Rivers
Getting over not fitting in
Why I have a jackalope tattoo, and another of a covered wagon.
Posted inArticles
SCOTUS has shown poor judgment before
Remembering Japanese internment on a journey to Heart Mountain as Roe falls.
Posted inArticles
When I knew I had made it home
I drifted around the rural West and country for decades. Until I reached a small corner of Colorado.
Posted inArticles
Raquel Gutiérrez feels shades of desperate
The author of ‘Brown Neon’ on queer fatherhood and being broke down in the desert.