Volume Sixteen

Proudly presenting Modern Huntsman Volume 16

Volume 16 explores our connection to the wild, both personal and public, from intimate, emotionally defining moments with nature to the strategic solutions needed to preserve shared spaces for generations to come. This issue’s writers, photographers, artists, editors and experts have gathered narratives as curious as they are challenging, encouraging you to go deeper into the kind of wilderness that  — as contributor and award-winning author David Duncan James says — “gives you a thread so you don’t get lost.” Here’s a peek at some of what you’ll find: 

• For Editorial Director Chris Dombrowski and award-winning photographer Andy Anderson, the vast uplands are a place to seek, with bird dogs and public lands as teachers in “The Palace of Ordinary People.”
• In “El Llano Quebrado, The Fractured Plain,” their profile on roughnecks, West Texas native John Rutherford and acclaimed photographer Blair Getz Mezibov trace the places between progress and catastrophe, challenges and change, the hands that do the hard work and those that reap the rewards.
  In “The Shape of Memory,” Chandra Brown winds her way through questions around cultural memory, family and the evolving, fraught and enigmatic relationship between humans and animals.
• Acclaimed novelist David James Duncan graces us with “Dreams the Wild Carries Inside It,” exploring how a fleeting instance can define the word “wild.” For him, it came from remembering a poem while out in the woods and making the split-second decision to run down an abandoned track after an elk. 
• An impassioned career in the outdoor and journalism industries led Christopher Keyes to launch Re:Public in mid 2025, to track the cumulative impact of unprecedented changes to land management. Re:Public has developed a Public Lands Report Card — an effort to bring rigor and accountability to a policy landscape that often changes faster than the public can follow.
• In our reprising columns, Rick White reviews “By the Fire We Carry” for Literary Huntsman, while JC Alberico writes about fishing industries in peril for Young Guns, and we launch a new series about musicians who find inspiration in the outdoors called Blood on the Tracks, featuring Outlaw Country legend Robert Earl Keen, who considers himself a poet first and a musician second.
• There’s also waterfowl in the deep South, tales of the wild-game butcher revival, woodcock on Mr. Woodstock’s farm and more.

DETAILS

Due to continued increases in printing and production costs, we only have a limited number of these books, and they are “first come, first shipped” after our initial fulfillment to our subscribers. If you want a guaranteed copy, it is best to subscribe. There is also the option to order a single copy, but you will not receive free shipping or subscriber discounts on back issues.

SPECS

• 208 pages
• 9″ x 11″ perfect bound
• Soft-touch cover
• Printed in the USA
• FSC Certified Paper