Wolfish: The stories we tell about fear, ferocity and freedom
Author: Erica Berry
Format: Hardback, 144mm x 220mm, 539g, 432 pages
Published: Canongate Books, United Kingdom, 2023
Wolves abound through cultural folklore and through literature - vilified and venerated in equal measure. In Wolfish, Erica Berry examines these depictions, alongside her own research of the wolf for nearly a decade, to get to the heart of what our stories about the wolf reveal about our relationships with one another and ourselves: 'What does it mean to want to embody the same creature from which you are supposed to be running?'The wolf is so often depicted as the male predator, preying on the vulnerable girl/woman who strays from the path; the she-wolf meanwhile depicts women who sit outside the accepted boundaries of feminine behaviour. Berry openly recounts her own uncomfortable and sometimes frightening experiences as a woman to try to understand how we navigate our fears when threat can seem constant. Through it all, Berry finds new expressions for courage and survival: how to be a brave human and animal member of our fragile, often dangerous world.
Erica Berry is a writer based in her hometown of Portland, Oregon. She has an MFA from the University of Minnesota, where she was a College of Liberal Arts Fellow. Her writing has appeared in the Guardian, New York Times Magazine, Yale Review, Outside Magazine, Catapult, Atlantic, Guernica and elsewhere. Winner of the Steinberg Essay Prize and the Kurt Brown Prize in non-fiction, she has received fellowships and funding from the Bread Loaf Writers Conference, Tin House, the Ucross Foundation, the Minnesota State Arts Board and the Institute for Journalism and Natural Resources. A former Writer-in-Residence with the National Writers Series in Traverse City, Michigan, she is currently a Writer-in-the-Schools with Literary Arts in Portland. @ericajberry | ericaberry.com
Author: Erica Berry
Format: Hardback, 144mm x 220mm, 539g, 432 pages
Published: Canongate Books, United Kingdom, 2023
Wolves abound through cultural folklore and through literature - vilified and venerated in equal measure. In Wolfish, Erica Berry examines these depictions, alongside her own research of the wolf for nearly a decade, to get to the heart of what our stories about the wolf reveal about our relationships with one another and ourselves: 'What does it mean to want to embody the same creature from which you are supposed to be running?'The wolf is so often depicted as the male predator, preying on the vulnerable girl/woman who strays from the path; the she-wolf meanwhile depicts women who sit outside the accepted boundaries of feminine behaviour. Berry openly recounts her own uncomfortable and sometimes frightening experiences as a woman to try to understand how we navigate our fears when threat can seem constant. Through it all, Berry finds new expressions for courage and survival: how to be a brave human and animal member of our fragile, often dangerous world.
Erica Berry is a writer based in her hometown of Portland, Oregon. She has an MFA from the University of Minnesota, where she was a College of Liberal Arts Fellow. Her writing has appeared in the Guardian, New York Times Magazine, Yale Review, Outside Magazine, Catapult, Atlantic, Guernica and elsewhere. Winner of the Steinberg Essay Prize and the Kurt Brown Prize in non-fiction, she has received fellowships and funding from the Bread Loaf Writers Conference, Tin House, the Ucross Foundation, the Minnesota State Arts Board and the Institute for Journalism and Natural Resources. A former Writer-in-Residence with the National Writers Series in Traverse City, Michigan, she is currently a Writer-in-the-Schools with Literary Arts in Portland. @ericajberry | ericaberry.com