This is a hybrid event, meaning there is an option to attend virtually and a limited number of seats are available to attend the event in-store. The event is free but registration is required for both in-person and virtual attendance.
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This event includes a book signing. If you would like a signed book but can’t attend in person, use the order comments field when you order below to request a signed copy and tell us to whom the book should be personalized.
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When you stray from a trail and strike out into the woods, you are bushwhacking. The term implies a physical thrashing about–pushing past branches, slicing through thickets, leaping across downed trees–but it also implies a certain fortitude and resilience to seek places unknown. In Bushwhacking, Jennifer McGaha borrows the term, likening it to what writers do when faced with the equally daunting blank page. Exploring the wilderness of your inner life means leaving a relatively comfortable place and going where no path exists. Writers face similar, unknown obstacles when forging a route to a final draft. Part writing memoir, part nature memoir, and part meditation on a life well lived, Bushwhacking draws on McGaha’s experiences running, hiking, biking, paddling, and getting lost across the Appalachian Mountains of western North Carolina to offer readers encouragement and practical suggestions to accompany them on their writing and life journeys. Each essay links one of McGaha’s forays into the wilderness to an insight about the creative process. An almost-failed attempt at zip lining becomes a lesson on getting out of one’s comfort zone. The thrum of a hummingbird’s wings, an autumn sunset, and a hound dog’s bay at a bear on the path are impromptu master classes in finding inspiration in the small, the ordinary, and the unexpected. With humility, humor, and hard-won wisdom, Bushwhacking honors writing craft traditions and offers fresh insights into how close communion with nature can transform your writing and your life.
Jennifer McGaha has taught creative nonfiction and memoir writing in various settings for more than twenty years and currently coordinates UNC Asheville’s Great Smokies Writing Program. She is the author of the critically acclaimed memoir Flat Broke with Two Goats, and her work has appeared in the Huffington Post, the Bitter Southerner, Brevity, CHEAP POP, Lumina, PANK, the Chronicle of Higher Education, Passengers, HerStry, and elsewhere. A native of Appalachia, McGaha lives in western North Carolina with her husband, two cats, six unruly dogs, ten relatively tame dairy goats, and an ever-changing number of hens.
Bev MacDowell
A hike and backpack guide for the Carolina Mountain Club and Blue Ridge Hiking Company. She’s led children and adults on trail adventures for more than 15 years. She is an Appalachian Trail Maintainer for the Max Patch section and is attached to the CMC Friday Maintenance Crew. She has completed Educator Outward Bound, 28 Miles in a day Make a Wish Hike, several CMC Challenges and 200 miles of the Spanish Camino del Santiago. The bulk of this was accomplished post 50 years old. She is grateful to be able to hike, help others do the same and to live in these gorgeous old mountains.
