"With her immersive, deeply considered essays, Erica Watson proves to be one of Alaska's finest contemporary writers. Ghosts of Distant Trees is place-based' writing at its best, blending observation and memoir with philosophy and attitude. Anyone who wishes to know what it's like to live at the edge of Denali National Park, or in the world today, will find Watson to be an informed and engaging storyteller." -Nancy Lord, former Alaska Writer Laureate and the author of Fishcamp and Early Warming

"To a visitor, 'gateway town' connotes the scenic entrance to a National Park. When you live in such a place, it's a more complicated term, as 'sublime' abuts 'mundane.' Erica Watson grew up in an NPS family and lives near Denali National Park, on Dene lands. In these insightful essays, she lays open the nuance that decades in a subculture can bring: wolves and wonder and quiet, and also abortions and elections, gravel pits and noise. 'I always find myself drawn back into the in-between areas, ' Watson writes. By turns researched and intimate, questing and irreverent, Watson digs into the in-between glossed over by promotional campaigns and offers stories of living on land, among neighbors and beings, at the edge of the still-wild world."-Christine Byl, author of Dirt Work and Lookout"Firmly rooted in landscape and community, the essays of Erica Watson's The Ghost of Distant Trees are wise and stunningly self aware. Watson is a sharp, unsparing observer and a penetrating thinker; literally and figuratively, she leaves no stone unturned as she travels from an Arizona girlhood to an Alaska womanhood."-Joe Wilkins, author of

Publisher: Porphyry Press

Pub date: 2025-11-01

Length: 194 pages