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Neil Mathison's writing explores the many ways in which the physical world influences our lives. He muses on heritage, boats, and the sea; ponders how living in the shadow of a volcano shapes a person; and ties the physical world to deeper themes of human life, such as relationships and personal tragedies.
Acknowledgments
Maps
My Tahoe
My Redwoods
Ice
Catastrophic Columbia
Volcano: an A to Z
Wooden Boat
Twenty-two Ways to Lose and (Maybe) Regain Paradise
Neil Mathison is an essayist and short-story writer who has been a naval officer, a nuclear engineer, an expatriate businessman living in Hong Kong, a corporate vice president, and a stay-at-home dad. His work has appeared in Ontario Review, Georgia Review, Southern Humanities Review, North American Review, North Dakota Quarterly, Agni, Under the Sun, -divide-, Bellowing Ark, Pangolin Papers, Blue Mesa Review, and elsewhere. Born in Brazil, he grew up in Seattle, graduated from the US Naval Academy, and ultimately returned to the Northwest where he now lives and writes.
"This is an inviting essay collection – full of time, thought, unsentimental felling, and a clarity of observation that together range far and wide. With beautiful writing, Neil Mathison offers us the benefits of his wild and tamed curiosity – which, as he suggests, may be divine. I'm pleased to choose it as the winner of the Monadnock Essay Collection Prize."
– Alice B. Fogel, New Hampshire poet laureate and author of A Doubtful House (1/1/2017)
"In this collection of unified essays Neil Mathison effortlessly draws parallels between geological upheavals and upheavals in the lives of his friends, partners, and family. Rich in the history of geology and cartography, these pieces explore the ever-shifting earth and carefully map the inner landscapes of a handful of its inhabitants."
– Bernard Cooper, author of My Avant-Garde Education (1/1/2017)
"Geology is the story of change over time. So, too, are Mathison's beautifully written travels across the landscapes of geography, family, marriage, love catastrophe, and resilience. Volcano: An A to Z is a book to be read and returned to again and again."
– Adrienne Ross Scanlan, author of Turning Homeward: Restoring Nature in the Urban Wild (1/1/2017)
"Neil Mathison poses unexpected existential questions about profound natural phenomenon: What does the age of a redwood tell us about human wisdom? Did surviving cataclysmic glacial floods enhance human evolution? Is curiosity divine? While discussing natural processes, he suggests trails of thought through the ensuing wilderness of ideas that lead towards our own personal answers, and perhaps humanity's answers as well."
– Skip Horner, worldwide mountain guide and adventure entrepreneur (1/1/2017)
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