Journey into the Wild
“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.
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.
What Readers Are Saying
Living In Place
The Scientist Writes
Regular Live to Write - Write to Live blogger Deborah Lee Luskin wrote Most Improved Writing Student earlier this month. . Here's a guest post by that student, Daniel Chamovitz, author of What A Plant Knows . . I don’t consider myself an author; I am a scientist. I...
Writing Through Grief
My mother died last month. Her death was long anticipated and when it finally came, something of a relief. But losing a parent is one of life’s great transitions, moving the next generation closer to the front line of death. As expected as my mom’s death was, it also...
Most Improved Writing Student
In 1982, while a graduate student at Columbia University, I taught Introduction to Freshman Composition, a remedial course for bright but inarticulate young men just entering the college. (Columbia was still all-male back then.) I’d never taken Freshman Composition of...



