Reviving Artemis: The Making of a Huntress
Finding a Place in the Natural World
Reviving Artemis is the unlikely story of a woman raised in mid-twentieth-century suburbia, then lived in New York City as a young adult, and moved to Vermont in 1984. For more than thirty years, she raised domestic livestock, kept bees, and cultivated fruits and vegetables while teaching literature and telling stories. But when she turned sixty, something shifted. Luskin was overtaken by a primal urge to step out of the garden, off the blazed trails, and into untracked forest by learning to hunt deer.
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Into the Wilderness
Could there be two people more different?
It’s 1964, and Rose Mayer is recently widowed, a Democrat, and Jewish. When she meets Percy Mendell, a born and bred Vermonter, who has never married and never voted for a Democrat, they clash before a surprising romance springs up, challenging all of the status quos. At age 64, they both must employ their humor, wit and compassion to even consider the other. Set against the backdrop of Vermont’s changing season and voraciously opinionated population, Into the Wilderness is both a love story and a testament to the surprising flexibility of the human heart.
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Deborah Lee Luskin
Deborah Lee Luskin moved from New York City to Vermont in 1984 to write, garden, keep bees, and raise daughters. Luskin has been an editorial columnist, radio commentator, pen-for-hire, and blogger. Her first novel, Into the Wilderness, won the Independent Publishers Gold Medal for Regional Fiction. Luskin has also enjoyed a long career as an educator, teaching writing and literature-based humanities to gifted elementary writers, college students, new adult readers, life-long learners, healthcare workers, and prison inmates. She holds a PhD in English Literature and expected to become an academic, not a deer hunter. She lives in Vermont with her husband, their dog, usually a cat, and a variable number of chickens.
Living In Place
Overcoming Resistance With Presence
Monday marked my third week back in ordinary life, and a tsunami of resistance scattered my well-laid plans, smashing my productivity to sentence fragments. I returned to my Long Trail Journal for insight. My entry for my eleventh day on the trail reads, “A big day of...
Trail Angels on The Long Trail
TRAIL ANGELS Even though Jan and I were the ones hiking, we had help from a host of truly divine Trail Angels on the Long Trail. Before we even left, we had help. Back in July, three members of my family with lots of backpacking experience took me on a shake-down hike...
How To Meet a Big Goal
Following a “footpath in the wilderness” from Massachusetts to Canada has helped me learn how to meet a Big Goal. I’ve just returned from Hiking the Long Trail – the 275 mile recreational footpath that follows the spine of the Green Mountains the length of...


