Following our Fathers

Meredith Robinson, who is currently undertaking an MLitt in Publishing Studies at Stirling University displays the illustrated book she has created for her course project: Following our Fathers: Two Journeys among Mountains. The book comprises two essays, photos and hand-drawn maps extracted from my longer essay collection, Doubling Back, which was shortlisted in 2009 for the Robin Jenkins Literary Prize for environmental writing, and currently remains unpublished in its full form.

Following our Fathers will be in print from 'best foot books' later this year, and you can already 'like' it on a Facebook fanpage!

Robert Macfarlane has said of it: "A wonderfully subtle pair of stories about walking, wayfaring and memory. Cracknell explores the strange durability of the paths that we make in our lives, in our dreams and after our deaths."

And here's the blurb:

Two men make significant journeys on foot, one in Nazi-occupied Norway, 1944, and one in the Swiss Alps, 1952. More than half a century later, the writer finds their routes still ‘way-marked’ by memory. By sharing their footprints, she makes memorials to the men as fathers – one of them her own. Despite the shadow of death and danger, the book celebrates life, family, friendship and walking through mountain landscapes richly textured with stories.

This has been a very worthwhile collaboration with Meredith whose course and its professional approach will, I hope, see her midwifing many further books and writing projects, before long.