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

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

Jan, Saying Goodbye

Jan. May 2015. We were so astonished to see the bald eagle on that rainy Sunday in February, we didn’t realize it was Jan, saying goodbye. The eagle flew across the sodden snow and perched in a pine at the far end of the field. Her head and tail appeared like patches...

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Reading the Town Report

The West River, the town’s northeast boundary, in late summer, when the world was impossibly green. Photo by Marion Dowling, Chair of the Selectboard. In preparation for moderating Town Meeting on the first Tuesday in March, I’ve been reading the Town Report. At its...

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Chilkoot Trail Photos

Here's a gallery of photos from the Chilkoot Trail, which I wrote about in Hiking the Chilkoot last week. The Trail Center in Skagway, where we picked up our pass.We took a shuttle to the railhead in Dyea. Bridge to Canyon City - one person at a time! Canyon City had...

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