Woodsqueer
Crafting a Sustainable Life in Rural Maine
A spiritual connection with the land, nature, and animals (both wild and domesticated) resulting in a respectful, reverant ecology.
A queering of the traditional idealist couple's back-to-the-land narrative through lesbian eyes replete with plaid flannels and power tools.
Heightened and sustained attention to the ecology of nature (deer, other forest denizens) and agriculture (chickens, goats)
Faithful and respectful depiction of rural Maine, and northern New England (VT and HN)
Intrepid sportswoman, polar explorer, and writer Gretchen Legler tackles her greatest challenge yet - rural, self-sufficient domesticity
Cottagecore trending in popular culture
Audience, professionals in these fields: organic farming, wild foods, psychology and social work, gardening, literature, writing
General readers interested in the following: women and adventure, feminism, memoir, women’s stories about place, women and farming, organic farming, gardening, lesbian life, foraging and wild foods, spiritual healing, healing fro trauma, back-to-the-land movement, homesteading, Maine, rural life, goats, raising chickens, making maple syrup, long-term lesbian relationships, LBGTQ, Cottagecore
Gretchen Legler is the author of On the Ice: An Intimate Portrait of Life at McMurdo Station, Antarctica and All The Powerful Invisible Things: A Sportswoman’s Notebook, which received two Pushcart Prizes (reissued by Trinity University Press). She is a professor of creative writing at the University of Maine at Farmington. She lives in Farmington with her partner, Ruth.