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.

Available at:

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.

Available at:

Deborah Lee Luskin

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

Spring Rises

Spring Rises: Frost blooms to mud, sap ascends, steam billows; syrup sweetens hope. Hope is not the same as impatience for snow to melt or the hyacinth's perfume. Hope rises on wings, sings, nests, raises young...

read more

More About My Grandfather

A photo from the family archive. I have more to say about my grandfather since last fall, when I wrote both about him sexually abusing me and about Vermont Public Radio not allowing me to say so. First of all, admitting this abuse took place has helped me see the long...

read more

Improving Town Meeting

This year's Newfane Town Meeting was held in Williamsville Hall, a former grange built in 1910. Low attendance spurred some discussion about ways of improving Newfane's Town Meeting. Two possibilities were raised: 1) allowing the use of remote participation via...

read more