Sylvan Crone: A Midlife Quest

by Heather Durham

In this third collection, Heather Durham invites you into the lush terrain of a feral human in relationship with the more-than-human world, encountering new insights in the realms of folklore, feminism, ecophysiology, mental illness, and mysticism. Entering midlife as a single, queer, non-mothering, hypersensitive, forest-dwelling hermit in the midst of personal and cultural turmoil, she finds herself continually engaged with the question, who am I, and in these essays discovers twenty unique, profound, visceral, evocative, and still-evolving answers. At once restless and rooted, these lyric forays immerse in a single ecological landscape—in relationship with black bear and coyote, cedar and hemlock, water ouzel, and chickadee, salmon, and stream—and yet they range far, epic meanderings in the vast and changeable internal wilderness of a lifelong seeker.

Genres: Nature

202 pages, Paperback

Published March 4, 2025

About the author

Heather Durham is a naturalist and contemplative writer exploring the science and mystery of internal and external landscapes, seeking meaning and solace as a feral human in the more-than-human world. Her first memoir, Going Feral, was selected as a Next Generation Indie Book Awards Finalist in Nature Writing, and her second collection, Wolf Tree, won a Nautilus Gold Award for Memoir in Essays. Sylvan Crone is her third memoir-in-essays, deepening into midlife existential questions and discovering new insights in the realms of folklore, feminism, ecophysiology, mental illness, and mysticism.

Heather holds degrees in psychology, ecology, and creative nonfiction, and lives, writes, works, and plays on the traditional lands of Coast Salish tribes in Washington state.