Overview

A collection of lyrical essays offering an intimate exploration of rural life in the Arkansas Boston Mountains and River Valley, where the natural world and human experience intertwine. Through the lens of hunting, fishing, woodcutting, and gardening, the author examines what it means to live deliberately and in communion with the land. J. Carrol Sain's poetic prose moves seamlessly between visceral outdoor experiences and deep philosophical reflection-from the solemnity of taking an animal's life for sustenance to transforming the mundane task of splitting firewood into a meditation on self-reliance, cultural heritage, and the sensory pleasures of physical labor. Throughout, the author weaves personal memoir with natural history, Celtic heritage, and evolutionary biology. He traces his Scottish lineage to understand his hunting impulses, examines rural poverty and luck, confronts the mythology of black panthers in Southern folklore, and poignantly explores the tension between his lifelong fascination with the natural world and society's pressure to ""keep your head in the game."" The writing is richly textured and grounded in specific places. Yet these particular landscapes open onto universal questions: How do we maintain our humanity in an age of disconnection from the world that sustains us? What ancestral knowledge have we lost? How do we belong to place and to each other? This is nature writing that refuses romanticism, embracing instead the complexity and contradiction of living as a component of place-where the circle of life, death, and renewal remains unbroken.

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Reviews

Praise from J. Carrol Sain's Substack readers: ""On the days when the news has me rubbing my balding head and feeling anxious, I pour a drink and settle into Johnny's words instead. He's a blessing I'm counting on."" ""Johnny probes and interconnects the layers of self, community, and environment in the most honest, tender, and piercing way. I think he is one of the best writers living today."" ""I feel like Johnny's words and writings help capture and preserve what is slipping away, and help people to experience the quiet and intimate perspective those places give."" ""Johnny writes with such compassion, honesty, and respect. I learn something every time I read his writing."" ""I feel better about the world knowing there's a Johnny Carrol Sain holding forth on the things I care about-a way to see the world that speaks to the science of nature and our responsibilities to work for the common good. And, I usually laugh at some point while reading his work. God, I need more laughs in these crazy moments we are living.""

Author Information

Johnny Carrol Sain writes from the River Valley and Boston Mountains of Arkansas, where he explores the relationships between people and place through thoughtful observation and active participation in the natural world. His essays, which blend lyrical storytelling with unflinching examination of environmental and cultural issues, have appeared in Outdoor Life, The Bitter Southerner, Sporting Classics, The Food & Environment Reporting Network, The Drake, Hatch Fly Fishing, MidCurrent Fly Fishing, and Strung Sporting Journal among others. While rooted in hunting, fishing, and rural life, Johnny's scope extends beyond traditional outdoor writing. He has reported on environmental challenges facing Louisiana's marshlands and Florida Bay, investigated the impacts of industrial agriculture in Arkansas, covered public wildlands protection in New Mexico, and addressed climate change through both journalism and advocacy. His commitment to addressing environmental concerns has led him to speak at the Arkansas State Capitol during Earth Day celebrations and meet with members of Congress in Washington, D.C., regarding coastal wetland preservation.Johnny's work has been recognized with awards from the Outdoor Writers Association of America, the Southeastern Outdoor Press Association, and the Society of Professional Journalists. His writing has been incorporated into university curricula, including an honors course, and his unique voice has earned him invitations on national podcasts to discuss topics ranging from public land access to thoughtful hunting practices.Before becoming a writer, Johnny lived many lives-insurance salesman, hog farmer, property owner, convenience store owner. The 2008 recession changed everything, wiping out his businesses, savings, and home. Starting over with his wife, Christine, and two young daughters felt impossible until he returned to college and, more importantly, pursued a dream he'd shelved for decades. That dream had roots in a boyhood bedroom piled high with magazines that he read until they fell apart as well as various works of literature with Jack London as a favorite. Writing seemed like ""magic,"" requiring skills he didn't possess, so he waited. Years later, he tentatively sent an essay about a nocturnal bird to his hometown paper. They published it, he changed his major to journalism, and found his calling.Through careful prose that acknowledges both the beauty and brutality of living close to the land, Johnny examines what it means to be human in an increasingly disconnected world, finding profound truths in simple acts of daily life.

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