Welcome. My name is Adam Sawyer. Over the course of the last decade and a half, I have cobbled together a living as an outdoor and travel writer, photographer, published author, guide, and public speaker based in the Pacific Northwest. Until somewhat recently, I also lived with the love of my life, Kara, and our cat Lela off the grid on a 5-acre parcel of land in rural Washington. All of that changed in the early morning hours of February 25th, 2022.
While I was out of town for work our home accidentally caught on fire. By the time it was extinguished much of the home was lost, including almost everything in it. Unfortunately, the largest losses were irreplaceable. That of Kara and Lela. Since that day, who I am, what I do, and how I live, have changed forever.
Within days of the loss, I began journaling. Thoughts, feelings, and memories. I was also spending as much time as humanly possible out in nature, a refuge that I had turned to numerous times in the past when my world was seemingly in ruin. Through writing, nature, and the enormous support of friends and family, I began processing the grief and would occasionally share the essays or stories on Facebook. Writing for work, however, has been extremely difficult.
Over time, a number of friends and colleagues began encouraging me to share my grief stories with a broader audience, as they had personally found some degree of comfort and healing within them, which is why I’m here. But I also desperately want to continue to make a living writing about the things I am passionate about - travel, the outdoors, battles with addiction, love, life, and on down the line. But from a more personal perspective and without boundaries or editorial constraints. Which is also why I’m here.
Why Subscribe
I want to share the essays I write that deal with grief and addiction- past, present, and future, for free. Along with those, I’ll be sharing essays about love, life, nature, travel, my mother, and any number of other topics - those will occasionally reside behind a paywall, however. I’ll be publishing a new essay every Tuesday morning. You can subscribe for free, or support my work with a $5 a month or $50 a year subscription as well. Subscribing also grants you full access to the newsletter and archive, and every new essay will go directly to your inbox.
