ANDREA LANI
​In 2016, after working in the environmental field for more than fifteen years, Andrea Lani left her cubicle and dragged her husband and three sons to Colorado, her birthplace and heart's home, where they spent six weeks hiking the 500-mile Colorado Trail. From this experience she wrote Uphill Both Ways: Hiking toward Happiness on the Colorado Trail, a memoir about escaping the disappointments of midlife while forging connections with nature and family in the wilderness and confronting the damage humans have caused to the natural world, published by Bison Books in 2022.
Through her writing, Andrea explores the connections between humans and nature, embraces the extremes of motherhood, and plumbs the emotional effects of environmental degradation. Her 2018 essay "The Sparrow's Song" was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Other essays have appeared in Orion, Snowy Egret, The Maine Review, Zoomorphic, About Place Journal and other publications. Her short stories have been published in Willows Wept Review, Brain, Child Magazine, Saltfront, and the This Side of the Divide anthology, among others.
Andrea's a Maine Master Naturalist, a member of the Maine Master Naturalist Program board of directors, and the chair of the MMNP Diversity, Equity, Inclusiveness, and Justice working group. She teaches workshops in nature writing and nature journaling at venues around Maine, and she's a senior editor and co-editor of the Literary Reflections department at the online journal Literary Mama.
Andrea has a BA in Human Ecology from College of the Atlantic and an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Southern Maine's Stonecoast program. She lives in Maine with her family.
Senior Editor & Literary Reflections Editor
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