I'm in a book with Edward Abbey and Hunter S. Thompson

And it's coming out in January!

Dear Moss People,

I almost never use this channel for anything other than sending out the latest Mind The Moss dispatch. But this morning, I have some *personal news* to share; news that’s spiritually related to the newsletter.

As some of you might know, I’m a senior writer for Mountain Gazette. Literally one of the largest magazines you will ever read, at 11 x 17 inches per issue—and the rare outdoor publication that ventures far beyond the summit conquests and gear lists—Mountain Gazette has cultivated a loyal and passionate community of readers, which continues to grow each year. To celebrate the magazine’s 60th birthday, owner and editor Mike Rogge and the Mountain Gazette team are publishing an anthology of stories from the 1960s to the present day.

And I wrote one of those stories.

Print Ain’t Dead is the name of the upcoming book—which will be released in January of 2026—and it’s also something of a motto for Mountain Gazette. The success of the magazine and other print publications like it, such as Ori and Adventure Journal, is an encouraging rebuke to the premise that the future of media is entirely digital; an idea that’s become increasingly repellent, with generative AI infesting every corner of the Internet. Mountain Gazette has enjoyed multiple life cycles, starting back in the 1960s, and that’s why I’m now sharing the spine of a book with Edward Abbey and Hunter S. Thompson; both of whom wrote for Mountain Gazette back in the day.

But the foremost reason why I’m sharing the news about Print Ain’t Dead with you all is because Rogge and the Mountain Gazette crew have done so much to support the kind of creative and unusual outdoor writing that I aimed to publish more of when I launched Mind The Moss back in the summer of 2021. They have gone out of their way to give writers without massive platforms a chance (and the resources!) to spin their yarns. In fact, the story of mine that’s featured in Print Ain’t Dead is a story that Rogge invited me to write for Mountain Gazette: an account of thru-hiking a certain 27-mile trail across the City of Boston, with original photography from Dan Brown.

At a time when we are constantly being told—by people with way too much money and power—that audiences do not want these kinds of stories anymore, I think it’s important to highlight anything which reminds us of the ground truth. That people appreciate long-form storytelling which enlivens the senses and aims for the head. And that experiencing these stories in print can yield a more intimately connective experience than reading them on a laptop or phone screen. (On that note, I will be making a related announcement about Mind The Moss later this fall or early winter.)

SO, if you would like to get your mitts on a copy of Print Ain’t Dead early, you can order it by clicking here. I’m already clearing my reading schedule for January, so that I have ample time to sit down in a fuzzy chair and dig into the works of my fellow book contributors; especially those who’ve also emerged from the landscape more recently, thanks to the support and faith of the Mountain Gazette crew.

Cheers,
Miles