Mossback

Debut essay collection exploring landscapes and mythologies at the intersection of environmental, indigenous, and social justice

"An eclectic collection of essays on racism, colonialism, and the environment...Detailing his travels to places 'human culture has not conquered,' including Death Valley, the Ozarks, and Mount Hood in Oregon, Pritchett uses 'myth, memory, history, and ecology' to outline 'ways of seeing the world' that privilege ecological and social justice...illuminates alternative ways of relating to the natural world." — Publishers Weekly “Mossback is a beautiful meander through place and time, and an interweaving of authentic personal stories with the stories of others, including Welsh bardic poets, contemporary and ancient theologians, mystics, biologists, Greek philosophers, and indigenous elders. Pritchett takes readers from the swamplands of Virginia to the mountains of Africa and back, returning again and again to the most important question of our time—how will we change the way we live on and with the earth and with each other?” — Gretchen Legler, author of Woodsqueer: Crafting a Sustainable Rural Life

David Pritchett writes about land, ecology, settler colonialism, and the recovery of story and myth. He works in emergency medicine, and he holds a diploma in mountain medicine and is certified in track and sign. He lives in Ventura, California.


J. Drew Lanham is a birder, naturalist, hunter-conservationist, and poet. He is the author of Sparrow Envy: Field Guide to Birds and Lesser Beasts and T he Home Place: Memoirs of a Colored Man’s Love Affair with Nature , and his work has appeared in Audubon, Orion, Vanity Fair, Forest Ecology and Management , and t he Oxford American . The recipient of a 2022 MacArthur fellowship, he is Alumni Distinguished Professor of Wildlife Ecology at Clemson University in South Carolina.