Our special, once-a-year, Books and Authors issue focuses on coming to terms with legacies of the past — and looking forward to where the West is headed. Featuring new writing by Terry Tempest Williams and Aaron A. Abeyta, plus interviews with Kim Stanley Robinson and Stephen Graham Jones, this edition peers deeper into questions that shape Western identity.
High profile visitors
In September, we hosted “On the Wild Road,” our inaugural tour for High Country News Travel. The trip, which was co-sponsored and organized by Seven Directions Tours of Santa Fe, took a small group on a whirlwind tour to places like Yellowstone National Park, the Wild Animal Sanctuary in Denver, the Raptor Center in Wyoming,…
How to tell the story of the West, rural and urban
A residential library for readers, poets and naturalists takes shape.
Insights from a climate oasis
Author Kathleen Alcalá on learning to become an activist.
Looking over the edge
2016 Bell Prize runner-up.
Malheur verdict, chubs and understanding #NoDAPL
HCN.org news in brief
Native American literature’s shapeshifter
Novelist Stephen Graham Jones on how he transcends stereotypes.
Recommended reading to take you into the next year
The season’s best titles for new fiction and nonfiction.
Revisiting Idaho’s lead-poisoning legacy
A new book documents a catastrophe in Silver Valley.
Science fiction’s warnings for the present
Kim Stanley Robinson on climate change and the precarious health of the planet.
See photos of otherworldly owls
The North American owls and their landscapes.
The deeper meaning of trails
Insightful new books in the well-worn genre of trail literature.
The disappearance of Lyle Jeffs, firefighters and threats over an endorsement
Mishaps and mayhem from around the region.
Terry Tempest Williams and the refuge of change
One of the West’s most beloved authors revisits Great Salt Lake.
15 books every well-versed Westerner should read
A reading list for understanding the region.
The promise of Alaska’s wilderness
Two novels offer perspectives on the allure of the last frontier.
Adventures of a roving Bookmobile driver
This is not your typical library job.
The West’s messy intersections
A few weeks ago, I heard author Terry Tempest Williams deliver the keynote address at the annual SHIFT conference in Jackson, Wyoming. The conference, which High Country News sponsors, deals with the interesting, and at times messy, intersection of the West’s conservation and recreation communities. It’s messy because the people who recreate on our public…
Healing on the river
2016 Bell Prize winner.
Why we don’t mention my great-grandfather’s name
Aaron A. Abeyta on his family’s shadowy past in New Mexico