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Terrain.org is a unique independent magazine that has been around since 1997. It emphasizes themes related to location, environment, and social justice through a blend of literature, art, commentary, and design.

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This Bend in the River or What May Have Been a Dream

4 weeks ago | terrain.org | Cmarie Fuhrman |Chaun Ballard

You might come here on a Tuesday. To the trail, to this bench, to this place where the willows and sand and gravel meet the edge of history. Yours. The rivers. At this bend. Excerpted from Salmon Weather: Writing from the Land of No Return, by CMarie Fuhrman, published by Columbus State University Press. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission. In the heart of Idaho’s Salmon River Mountains, a woman unknowingly begins what becomes a journey of understanding.
South Main - Terrain.org

2 months ago | terrain.org | Elizabeth Jacobson

A Case Study in Small-TownNew Urbanism A 38-acre mixed-use development in Buena Vista, Colorado, South Main offers a compelling example of new urbanism tailored to a small-town context. Located just south of the town’s historic Main Street, the project reconnects Buena Vista to the Arkansas River through thoughtful urban design, public spaces, and sustainable architecture.
Three Gifts, Like I Wish I Were a Magi

Dec 4, 2024 | terrain.org | Rob Carney

1. As a kid, I never wanted socks for a present. This was a long time ago, of course, before socks had properly evolved. Now there’s Bombas™, and long ones with llamas on them, and skater kids (it seems to me) who actually like all the plain white tube socks, and somehow the 21st century must be spun from softer wool, as if the sheep today—whether in Ireland or munching on the grass in Montana—just poof up into these clouds of stuff that’s a lot less scratchy. Anyway, socks.
Letter to America: Sometime After Pat Cipollone’s Closed-Door Testimony

Dec 1, 2024 | terrain.org | Elizabeth Dodd

Sometime after Pat Cipollone’s closed-door testimony before the select committee—remember that?!—I dream I’m in a makeshift meeting of my university’s senate, off-campus and ad hoc. We’re all crammed into someone’s living room, mismatched chairs and sofas, pillows on the floor. There is no gentlelady from Wyoming, no without objection or I yield. The dream lacks any filigree of Robert’s Rules.
Letter to America by Emily Light

Nov 7, 2024 | terrain.org | Wendy Carlisle

Ghost PipeFlowers rooted in mushrooms rise from dead leaves,they open like periscopes breaking the ocean’s meniscusto spy the perfect spot to strike disaster. It’s pastelection day, past the Blood Moon eclipse and weare the shrapnel of something that happenedso long ago we’ve lost the origin. The ghost pipes’ bowed white heads startle hikers,spook even the chipmunks from trampling them. By fall they’re dark and erect as a middle finger.
Letter to America

Nov 3, 2024 | terrain.org | Scott Anderson

Dear America,Picture this: A man who has recently completed his 60th trip around the sun, lying on a comfortable futon on the floor of an idyllic retreat in the mountains, eyes closed and covered by an eyeshade, headphones on, playlist rolling, drifting through the cosmos of his own consciousness. That man was me, and the vessel for my journey: a carefully administered dose of psilocybin mushrooms, part of a guided psychedelic-assisted therapy journey gifted to me by my wife for my birthday.
We Are Animals - Terrain.org

Nov 1, 2024 | terrain.org | Jennifer Case |Jarrett Ziemer

Four days before my daughter is born, I am at the ob-gyn clinic for a usual, now weekly exam. The nurse straps the blood pressure cuff around my forearm. I breathe slowly, in and out, breathing in calmness, even though I can already see the nurse’s frown out of the corner of my eyes. “Hmm,” she says, like she has at each appointment for the past month. “It’s high. Have you been feeling okay?”Excerpted from We Are Animals: On the Nature and Politics of Motherhood, by Jennifer Case.
Music in the Afterglow: An Interview with Oliver Caplan

Oct 25, 2024 | terrain.org | Hannah Fries |Heidi Seaborn

IntroductionI met Oliver Caplan during our first year at Dartmouth College amidst a silly but studious cadre of musical misfits. He played piccolo in the marching band, and I played French horn in the wind symphony. Sometimes I sat in the stands with the band and played kazoo, just for the company. The first things that struck me about Oliver were his irrepressible smile and infectious laugh. He worked at the local Ben & Jerry’s and always gave an extra-large scoop to friends.
An Unfolding Story: A Review of Chris La Tray’s Becoming Little Shell: A Landless Indian’s Journey Home

Oct 21, 2024 | terrain.org | Jessica Gigot

Becoming Little Shell: A Landless Indian’s Journey HomeChris La TrayMilkweed Editions | 2024 | 320 pages Recently, I found myself going down a genealogy wormhole, trying to find out how and why my paternal ancestors arrived in the Midwest in the late 1800s. My father’s parents didn’t divulge many family stories, if there were many to share. Opposed to paying for an actual DNA test, I started scrolling through the numerous free ancestry websites.
My Eight-Snake Day

Oct 16, 2024 | terrain.org | Renata Golden |John Linstrom

The keen winds that sweep the valley between the Chiricahua and Peloncillo Mountains can make slithering along the ground on your belly seem like a reasonable way to get around. Spring and fall gusts can wobble mere humans, but snakes just hug tighter to the ground. Like prickly pear and cholla, snakes are icons of the southern Arizona landscape. Thirteen of the 16 species of rattlesnakes in the U.S. live in Arizona.