Woolgathering

Woolgathering

“What if we could fashion a restoration plan that grew from understanding multiple meanings of land? Land as sustainer. Land as identity. Land as grocery store and pharmacy. Land as connection to our ancestors. Land a sacred. Land as self.”

ROBIN WALL KIMMERER

You Are Nature!

We have been conditioned to believe that we are separate from nature. If we think of ourselves as separate, then we can exploit our natural environments. Generations of exploitation has given rise to environmental degradation that threatens all are existence on earth.

To begin to see ourselves as nature, we must learn to pay attention to our natural environments. This learning to observe, is like looking into a mirror. It’s an important way to  beging to develop intimate relationships with nature.

Developing our relationship with nature depends on listening to the patterns and fluctuations of our natural environments. If we listen well enough, we have a chance at preserving our planet and our place in it. 

Woolgathering, an ad-free nature magazine, is a literary practice in observing seasonal changes, how they impact our lives, and how we can love the planet back.  

Woolgathering is no longer available for subscription. Look for its new digital carnation in the Spring of 2023. Let me know if you are interested in back print issues!

Anna Lentz is an artist, writer, and podcast host living in Dundee, Illinois. Her art and writing practice is devoted to revealing our intimate connection and interdependence with nature. Through practicing creative rituals, she explores how nature’s cycles give shape and meaning to our lives.  Anna’s great hope is that in telling our intimate nature stories, we will ignite hearts, develop empathy, and solve our problems with creative and open hearts. 

Anna is the creator of Woolgathering, a quarterly magazine about the seasons, and Woolgathering the podcast, a podcast presentation of monthly nature stories that celebrates seasonal mindfulness. She also manages a woodland cottage retreat that invites guests to rest, be creative, and nurture their own relationships with nature and loved ones. To mend and nurture her own soul, Anna sews story quilts with hand-dyed scraps, upcycled fabrics, and colorful embroidery. 

Woolgathering Contributors

Maria Carvalho

Maria Carvalho is a multi-genre writer whose children’s book Hamster in Space! has been a perennial bestseller at her local bookstore. Her short stories have appeared in a wide range of collections and magazines, including science fiction tales in Under the Full Moon’s Light and Cabinet of Curiosities (both by Owl Hollow Press) and a fairy tale in Enchanted Conversation magazine. She also co-edited and contributed to the anthology Falling into the Five Senses (Ree-Imagined Worlds). Maria lives in Connecticut with her husband and teenage son. When she’s not writing, she loves going on nature walks, gardening, and reading.

  • Facebook: Maria Carvalho, Author (@mariafreycarvalho)
  • Twitter: @ImMCarvalho
  • Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7375526.Maria_Carvalho
  • Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Maria-Carvalho/e/B00FI2WLJI/ref=dp_byline_cont_book_1

Candice Marley Conner

Growing up between swamps, a river, and the Gulf Coast, Candice Marley Conner’s stories emerge from cypress knees, muddy water, and salty air. She is the kidlit haint at a haunted indie bookstore (but not haunted how you’re thinking) and an officer for her local writer’s guild. Her short stories and poems are in various anthologies and magazines including Smarty Pants Magazine for Kids, Highlights Hello, Cabinet of Curiosities, Babybug, Chicken Soup for the Soul, and more. Her next picture book, CHOMPSEY CHOMPS BOOKS releases October 12th, 2021 and her picture book, SASSAFRAS AND HER TEENY TINY TAIL, and her YA Southern mystery, THE EXISTENCE OF BEA PEARL, both debuted this June. She lives in Alabama with her husband and two children (one of whom is possibly feral, and definitely a velociraptor).

Cherylyn Gnadt

Cherylyn Gnadt resides in Aurora and is one of this year’s Springbird Residency recipients. Artist, printmaker designer, writer, adventure seeker, and seeker of meaning. She went outside at 12:01 am on January 1, 2021, and her ordinary surroundings became magical. She came in and wrote in her journal. This prose is edited only slightly from her first entry of the new year. The capture she didn’t even notice until the next morning.