Advertisement
Erica Watson will be at Fireside Books on Saturday, February 14th to sign copies of her debut book, Ghosts of Distant Trees. About the book:
In Ghosts of Distant Trees, Erica Watson traces the layered ecologies of Denali National Park, Alaska-its vast, shifting landscape, seasonal labor rhythms, and the subtle politics of inhabitation. Through lyric and narrative essays, she explores how built environments like Denali's single road shape encounters with land, gender, weather, and community. Turning from iconic vistas to gravel, orange peels, and garden beds, Watson asks what it might be like "to get to know a place without immediately thinking of what threatens it." Haunted by fire and thaw, these essays resist elegy, offering instead a complex meditation on belonging, vulnerability, and the fragile intimacies that persist in a warming world. This is writing attuned to detail, disruption, and the ethics of attention.
Reviews:
"Best new Alaskan voice of 2025." -David James, Anchorage Daily News
"Watson never lets herself — or us — off the hook. The essays consistently interrogate easy narratives about the American West, about conservation, about who gets to live in and love wild places. She asks hard questions about climate change, declining infrastructure, and the real costs of tourism-dependent economies." -Elizabeth Austin, Hippocampus Magazine
"A propulsive and timely collection, both deeply personal and widely significant—and especially urgent in this moment when our national parks are under existential threat." -Manjula Martin, author of The Last Fire Season
Advertisement
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
720 S Alaska Street, Palmer, AK, United States, Alaska 99645
Concerts, fests, parties, meetups - all the happenings, one place.
