“Sheep have helped me become a good shepherd, not just to them, but to a place that is my sustenance and joy as well as my unending labor and worry.”
Join Phoenix Books Burlington for an evening with renowned Vermont author, editor, and farmer Helen Whybrow to celebrate the release of her new book, The Salt Stones: Seasons of a Shepherd’s Life.
Helen Whybrow is an Editor-at-Large for Milkweed Editions. She was the publisher of an imprint of W. W. Norton for many years before becoming a freelance editor and Editor-at-Large for Orion Magazine. With a focus on creative nonfiction, Helen has worked with dozens of well-known writers over the years, including Barry Lopez, Lauret Savoy, Robin Kimmerer, Pico Iyer, Andrew Lam, and many others. She has authored two books, Dead Reckoning (W. W. Norton, 2001) and A Man Apart (Chelsea Green, 2015) and edited several anthologies, including Hearth (Milkweed, 2019). Her essays have appeared in Cagibi, Hunger Mountain and other literary journals. Helen studied literature at Amherst College and journalism at Harvard. Also an organic farmer and co-founder of a nonprofit that nurtures leaders working for land justice, she lives with her family in Vermont.
About the book:
In the heart of Vermont’s Green Mountains, Helen Whybrow and her partner set out to restore an old two-hundred-acre farm. Knowing that “belonging more than anything requires participation,” they begin to intertwine their lives with the land. But soon after releasing a flock of Icelandic sheep onto the worn-out fields, Whybrow realizes that the art of shepherding extends far beyond the flock and fences of Knoll Farm.
In prose both vivid and lean, The Salt Stones offers an intimate and profoundly moving story of what it means to care for a flock and truly inhabit a piece of land. The shepherd’s life unfolds for Whybrow in the seasons and cycles of farming and family—birthing lambs, fending off coyotes, rescuing lost sheep in a storm, and raising children while witnessing her mother’s decline. Exploring the interdependence of animals, as well as of the earth and ourselves, Whybrow reflects on the ways sheep connect her to place and to the ancient practice of shepherding.
Evocative, affectionate, and illuminating, The Salt Stones sings of a way of life that is at once ancient and entirely contemporary, inspiring us all to seek greater intimacy and a sense of belonging wherever our home place may be.
DATE: Wednesday, June 11, 7PM
LOCATION: Phoenix Books, 89 Church Street, Burlington, VT
TICKETS: $3. Your ticket comes with a coupon for $3 off one of the featured author's books. Coupons expire at closing the evening of the event. Tickets can be purchased at the registration link below, or at the door.
BOOKS: Copies of The Salt Stones will be available at the event. A book signing will follow the discussion
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