In 1972 the writer, Annie Dillard, began assembling hundreds of index cards, where she'd jotted down thoughts and quotations from a range of readings, meticulous observations of the seasons, notes on the natural processes that she'd witnessed near her home in the mountains of Virginia, and crafted them into a whole. The resulting book, Pilgrim at Tinker … Continue reading Chasing Colours
Author: julianhoffman
I'm a writer living beside the Prespa Lakes in northern Greece.
Enduring Time
Two things were of particular interest to me when we travelled to Tetovo in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, and they both concerned longevity. While one was a religious building that had withstood a devastating 17th century fire, armed ethnic conflict and the changing fortunes of shifting political borders, the other was a religious … Continue reading Enduring Time
Pelicans Between Wind and Water
Back home in Prespa pelicans are huddling on their nests. From dawn till dusk they criss-cross between the lakes, flying from their fishing waters on the large lake to their breeding grounds on the smaller. Prespa is home to both of Europe's pelican species, the white and the Dalmatian, and is one of the few places where the two … Continue reading Pelicans Between Wind and Water
By Way of a Lake Pt. 2
Having lived with the Prespa Lakes for almost a decade now, I feel a fierce love and allegiance towards them. It seems a natural exchange for what they've provided me over time, the give and take of long tenure. Yet there is one other wetland in northern Greece that attracts my attentions now and then; I … Continue reading By Way of a Lake Pt. 2
By Way of a Lake
Between winter and true spring are days of strange emergence. The landscape is in limbo, neither one season nor the next. Mammals explore the light, as well as the night. Only a few meagre wildflowers surface into the world, but when they do they do so with extravagance. And each year, around this time, I walk a … Continue reading By Way of a Lake
Julian Hoffman 