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Journey into the Wild

Reviving Artemis: The Making of a Huntress

Explore Deborah’s journey of embracing fears, redefining personal limits, and finding her place in the natural world.

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“A lyrical, spiritual story of a woman making a change later in life.” ~Kirkus Review

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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.

Deeply personal, lyrically told, and funny, Reviving Artemis reveals Luskin’s ambivalence about guns and her fear of entering the forest alone in the dark. She persisted, using her literary acumen to read the forest and, as thoughtfully as she hunts for words, to hunt for deer. With the stories of Artemis, goddess of the hunt, childbirth, and wild nature to inspire her, Luskin became a huntress determined to age fiercely and compelled to tell this story of finding her place in the natural world.

Key Themes and Insights

Reinterpreting Mythology

Delve into the rich reinterpretation of Artemis, exploring themes of empowerment and liberation.

Mentorship and Growth

Meet the mentors who guide the author on her journey, blending tradition with spirituality.

Connection with Nature

Experience the transformative power of nature as the author learns to navigate the wilderness.

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Overcoming Fears

Follow Deborah’s inspiring story of overcoming urban aversions to the untracked woods as she steps off-trail and learns to read the forested landscape.

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.

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What Readers Are Saying

Truly a Joy to Read

“This engaging memoir follows the trail of how hunting deer grounded a woman more strongly in her community, the forest, and herself—truly a joy to read.” ~Tom Wessels, author of Reading the Forested Landscape

“In Reviving Artemis, Deborah Lee Luskin answers the call to enter the woods with courage and perseverance, starting a new chapter in her life. Like Artemis, Luskin becomes a protector of wild nature, and she understands the deep interconnectivity between her personal life, the forest, and her community. Yet Luskin does more than honor her primordial roots. She shows vulnerability and hope, redefining herself through the pursuit of deer, embodying the fundamental characteristics of any true hunter: temperance, understanding, and love.” ~Jesse C. McEntee, Next Adventure.

“A lyrical, spiritual story of a woman making a change later in life.” – Kirkus Review

“Reviving Artemis is so much more than a story about a woman learning to hunt; it’s a story about following your heart, fi nding your passion, challenging your fears, and building confi dence. It’s a story about growth and believing and trusting in yourself.” – Judy Camuso, Commissioner of the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife

“… an honest, tender and engaging story about building relationship with land and community, about conservation, about reciprocity and responsibility, about death and change, about choosing to step bravely and humbly into the unknown.” —Ethan Tapper, forester, digital creator and the bestselling author of How to Love a Forest : The Bittersweet Work of Tending a Changing World

“Luskin’s writing tracks like a hunt: moments of exhilarating poignancy interspersed with quietly sublime refl ection. Her ability to relate the feeling and experience of the woods—especially from the perspective of a new hunter—is remarkable.” —Lou Tamposi, Cow We Doin’ (Substack)

“Hunting stories are as old as recorded time. Mostly told by men. Reviving Artemis is a woman’s story through and through with a lot to say to all of us. Deborah Luskin is an honest and self-aware writer with a keen sense of language.” —Tom Bodett, author, storyteller, voice actor, woodworker

“Deborah Lee Luskin is an important voice for women who take up hunting as adults. As she spins her story, she comes face to face with mortality, past pain, gender, and the conundrums that come any time we begin to truly engage with the sources of our own lives.” —Erika Hawsare, author of The Age of Deer

“I found the book to be a delight to read and the title is perfect! It’s the story of a woman’s evolution into the world of not only sustenance hunting but the culture of hunting.” —Kelly Price, Vermont State Game Warden, retired

“In Reviving Artemis, Deborah Lee Luskin answers the call to enter the woods with courage and perseverance, starting a new chapter in her life. Like Artemis, Luskin becomes a protector of wild nature, and she understands the deep interconnectivity between her personal life, the forest, and her community.” —Jesse C. McEntee, Next Adventure (Subst ack)

“Luskin’s insights are not just limited to the woods. With a sharp intellect, she opens new doors of awareness about community and connectedness.” —Kate Troll is an Alaskan adventurer, columnist and author of All in Due Time: A Memoir of Siblings, Genealogy, Secrets and Love

Living In Place

Morning Chores

by Deborah Lee Luskin | Jan 7, 2015 | Living in Place

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Turning the calendar to a new year is always an opportunity to establish new and improved organizing systems of all kinds. Over the years, I’ve developed a few of my own, from celebrating Boxing Day by boxing up the year’s receipts to cleaning up my computer by...

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by Deborah Lee Luskin | Jan 4, 2015 | Living in Place

In a typical Vermont winter, there’s a fleeting moment of good ice, for skating. Yesterday was it. Good ice depends on cold weather and no snow. Good skating years occur when winter snaps the water shut. Last year, winter arrived in late January with wonderful, deep,...