The two Prespa Lakes are split by a flat isthmus, a spur of sand which pelicans glide across in summer as they swap one body of water for the other. Those two lakes, though, were once one, a single blue bowl encircled by steep slopes. Over thousands of years, silt and sediment from the mountains … Continue reading Sand, Starlings and Other Small Things
“Ours was the marsh country, down by the river, within, as the river wound, twenty miles of the sea.” ~ Charles Dickens, Great Expectations, 1861 “Large terminals, operational buildings, offices, roads and car parks will interrupt the broad open scale of the marsh landscape… The network of ditches and creeks running through the marshes will … Continue reading The Marsh Country
With the end of summer, migrating birds make landfall along the shore of the lake. The dense thickets of alders and willows that have sprouted within reach of the water teem with tiny, flitting forms. Whinchats, warblers and flycatchers rustle through the silvered leaves or snare insects on the wing, taking enough from summer's rich … Continue reading The Small Heart of Things Book Trailer
The lone and level sands stretch far away. - Percy Bysshe Shelley, from ‘Ozymandias’ Only the evening before, a friend had warned me about the shifting sands of the estuary should I try to get close to the stone, confessing her own driven desire to seek out the totems and talismans of the landscape as … Continue reading Where the River Meets the Sea
I’m extremely excited to have received the cover art for The Small Heart of Things, and I’m deeply grateful to the University of Georgia Press for creating such an elegant and attractive design from my photo of a fire salamander taken here in Prespa. The tale of this particular salamander walking off into snow is one of the stories told in the book, so it’s especially pleasing … Continue reading The Small Heart of Things Cover Design
Julian Hoffman 