When Everything Beyond the Walls Is Wild: Being a Woman Outdoors in America (The Seventh Generation: Survival, Sustainability, Sustenance in a New Nature) - Softcover

LILACE MELLIN GUIGNARD is an award-winning poet; her published collection is titled Young at the Time of Letting Go, her work has appeared in Poetry magazine, and she wrote A Field Guide to the Norton Book of Nature Writing. She is an instructor of creative writing, outdoor recreation leadership, and women’s studies at Mansfield University. She resides in Wellsboro, Pennsylvania.

“Lilace Mellin Guignard's new book on women's experience of wilderness (and wildness) is a refreshing combination of personal experience and feminist research, one that tells a compelling story while simultaneously grounding that story in the context of larger local and global issues.  A compelling new take on women's environmental literature and experience, it is a must-read for every girl and woman who has ever dared to combat the gendered privilege of men going ‘into the wild’ and crafting that experience as a new, interrelational paradigm that presents new models for prosociality and the importance of everyone's having a personal relationship with wildness, outdoor spaces, and the biosphere.”—Leslie Heywood, editor of Third Wave Agenda:  Being Feminist, Doing Feminism, and The Women's Movement Today: An Encyclopedia of Third Wave Feminism -- Leslie Heywood

“An intimate journey through wildernesses of place and self with a savvy guide. Anyone who wants to know America’s wild beauty from the eyes of a woman who loves it should read this book.”—Sheryl St. Germain, author of The Small Door of Your Death -- Sheryl St. Germain

“This feast of a book by Lilace Mellin Guignard vividly relates her adventures from a lifelong love-affair with wildness and climbing and includes powerful, extended reflections on gender and race and on changing attitudes toward women’s roles in mountaineering. . . . Honest and generous, occasionally stern but always high-spirited, Guignard is the kind of guide one wants to follow into bracing terrain.”—John Elder, author of Reading the Mountainsof Home and The Frog Run -- John Elder

"Her personal insight, paired with a multitude of historical references, give the reader a complete and captivating look into what it feels like to be a female active in the environment... By incorporating her personal expeditions in nature, her love life, and her family life, she simultaneously creates a comfortable and visual space for her audience to learn about being a woman in the outdoors of America." -- Keely Smith, Journal of the Botanical Research Institute of Texas

"...many women will find their own enjoyment of hiking, rafting, cycling, and rock climbing reflected in this book." -- H. Corbett, CHOICE