Christie Green in Conversation with Erika Howsare

SOMOS A Place for Words | 108 Civic Plaza Dr., Taos, NM 87571

Book cover for Moonlight Elk by Christie Green. Illustration of an elk looking toward the viewer.Christie Green, author of Moonlight ElkJoin us at SOMOS on November 16, when author Erkia Howsare interviews Christie Green about her new book, Moonlight Elk.

Christie Green learned to hunt in order to complement the food she grew in her New Mexico garden. As an act of practical agency this fulfilled her needs, yet a restlessness stirred within. She longed for a life defined by something deeper than weekly schedules, work roles, and cultural norms. Could she travel beyond the supposed domain of women and venture into the world of animals, into the wild, where men were said to prevail?

Layer by layer, hunt by hunt, Green peels away societal skins that adhere to a prescribed grid, a manufactured tick of time, a picture of perfection. Tracking and tracing, moving in darkness, watching, smelling, listening, and following the animals, Green sheds the burdens of her domestic self and witnesses the animals defying reason as they walk her into their world, ambling her along, straddling night and day, waking and sleeping. Through them, definitions of gender dissolve and boundaries blur. In the process, Green eclipses western society’s definitions of her as a woman, mother, lover, and entrepreneur, courageously birthing her own independence through a profound connection to the animals and the places they call home.

What she sought from these animals was food. What she found was freedom.

“Moonlight Elk tracks the electric presence of a hunter who ‘burn[s] for belonging’ in the land and among the animals. . . This book will re-map your heart.” — Erika Howsare, author of The Age of Deer: Trouble and Kinship with Our Wild Neighbors

Erika Howsare holds an MFA in literary arts from Brown University and has published two books of poetry. She also worked in local journalism for twenty years, covering culture and environmental issues. She teaches writing and contributes reviews and essays to various national outlets. A native of Pennsylvania, she lives in rural Virginia. Her new book, The Age of Deer, came out this year.