Outside in Shorts: Seasons of Life, Luck, and Loss in the Outdoors

by Allen C Crater

As outdoorsmen, it’s natural to measure time in seasons, each made up of immeasurable small moments. A handful of these experiences live on to become the fabric of tradition – mementos of victories and vestiges of failures that pay homage to pleasures and pains, fears and frustrations, trials and triumphs. Common bonds. We taste them in a cup of coffee poured before a winter trek in the big woods, and smell them in those first, fresh days of spring. We hear them in the soft chuckle of a summer river and see them in the silent sip of trout and the staunch point of a seasoned dog. We wear them like a trusty old flannel beside a campfire, where they become tall tales, or even legends, and celebrate our common bond with wild places and with each other.

Honored with the "Harold Opie Titus Award" for Best Book by The Michigan Outdoor Writer's Association in 2023, Outside in Shorts – Seasons of Life, Luck and Loss in the Outdoors is a collection of 29 short stories that explore a catalog of seasons passed among woods and water – four decades of treasured mementos. Memories of people and places, of piscatorial pursuits and perplexing predicaments, of puppies and parenting and pink cake, and the profound pleasure of a life spent outdoors.

183 pages, Paperback

Published September 19, 2022

Reviews

[London Baker · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a really touching, beautifully written collection of short stories about nature and the wonders it holds. Some stories were better than others, some made me laugh and a few even brought tears to my eyes.

Allen has proven himself as an author and I hope to see more from him somewhere down the line.