For many years now, Orion Magazine has been a guiding light for me as both reader and writer, so I'm especially grateful for the opportunity its editors gave Alexis Adams and myself to have an extended conversation about borders, belonging, rivers, forests, ecological grief, resistance and love. Called Heart's Home, this conversation grew out of … Continue reading Heart’s Home
I'm delighted to say that my new book, Lifelines, was published last week, nearly twenty-five years after my wife, Julia, and I arrived in Prespa in northern Greece with the aim of radically changing our lives. All we had to go on at the time was the book about the region that had convinced us … Continue reading Lifelines: Searching for Home in the Mountains of Greece
I first met Matina Galati in a grove of extraordinary juniper trees on a limestone mountain above the Prespa lakes where I live in northern Greece. That day, I’d been walking with the Hungarian gardener and botanist Máté Tálas and two friends of his when Matina arrived from Athens to join the group for the … Continue reading Artwork for Lifelines: Interview with Matina Galati
He stood in cold sunlight beside the bus shelter, dressed in a dark overcoat and matching suit, a leather briefcase hanging from one hand. Unlike the rest of us, the man had his back to the road, his eyes fastened on three trees just the other side of the black iron railings that mark the … Continue reading The Wild Nearby
This autumn I was meant to be in Chicago to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Wetlands Initiative and to help kick-off the next chapter of the organisation's vital mission to protect and restore wetlands across the American Midwest. Wetlands are amongst the most threatened and fragile ecosytems on the planet: in Europe, roughly two-thirds … Continue reading Wetlands: Havens of Life
Julian Hoffman 