An Adventure Begins Here

Deep Wild 2025 has hit the trail!

Well-made words from wild places: That’s what each issue of Deep Wild: Writing from the Backcountry holds: 160+pages of stories, essays, and poems by dozens of writers, in celebration of and in defense of places where there are no roads. The journal is printed on FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) paper in a compact, durable format. It wants to go camping! Click here to read the Contents and Foreword of Deep Wild 2025.

Cover art © by Julia Buckwalter

From the glacier fields of Alaska to the churning rapids of the Colorado, from the lush rainforests of Hawaii to the parched Sinai Peninsula, from the Andean highlands, the Mongolian steppes, and the familiar wilds of one’s backyard, the 54 contributors to Deep Wild 2025 invite us to share in their journeys to places where there are no roads. Join them!

Click here for ordering options. Postage paid anywhere in the U.S.!

It’s the perfect gift for your outdoor-loving friends and fam–or for yourself!


Wild Words Await You!

If you love wild places and good words, please consider supporting our mission. We are a not-for-profit journal funded entirely by subscriptions and donations. To read excerpts, subscribe to our blog, or check out our archive page. Students and teachers, we have a special page for you. Follow this link to see our Holiday Sale options.


Books from Deep Wild Press

Deep Wild Press publishes one or two titles a year, currently by invitation. Our goal is to bring high-quality literature true to the mission of Deep Wild Journal into the hands of readers at affordable prices. Currently, we offer four titles. To learn more about Deep Wild Books and their authors, and to read some choice excerpts, visit https://deepwildjournal.com/books/

Marcia Hensley, author of the acclaimed Staking Her Claim: Women Homesteading the West, shares the story of her own journey from a conservative upbringing in Tulsa to a freer, fuller life in rural Wyoming.
In 27 compact, lively essays, life-long backpacker Rick Kempa writes about the pains and pleasures, surprises and simplicities, soul-satisfying rhythms and just plain joy familiar to all who take to the trail.
Wyoming Poet Laureate Barbara Smith offers richly-imagined stories of pioneer women of the West and of her own family’s multi-generational history in Montana and Wyoming

The results are in for our 2025 Student Contest!

Click here for the winners list of our “Waking to the Wild 2025 Student Contest.” Congratulations to the winners, and thanks to all the student writers from throughout the United States and beyond who sent us work. We wish we could have honored more.