Backyard Alchemy: On Life with Other Creatures in a Time of Salvage

J.D. Ho's Backyard Alchemy transforms the loss of climate stability, relationships, health, and ecological integrity into sites of repair and restoration. Whether about microforaging pennycress and sheep sorrel
in the fields, picking pawpaws in the woods, or salvaging scrap metal by a degraded creek, these lyric essays delve into the personal and historical meanings of local ecologies. They explore locations from the Virginia woods to the Los Angeles River, from the Big Island of Hawai'i to Darwin's England and Guangdong Province, China, crouching down to look at the world from the point of view of a stinkbug, a crayfish, a tree of heaven, revealing the ways that empathy can connect us to even the smallest and most denigrated inhabitants of our planet.

J.D. HO was born by the sea, raised on a rock, went to Williams College with a bunch of hippies, schmoozed in Hollywood, drove to Austin, Texas for an MFA at University of Texas's Michener Center for Writers, and now freelances and lives among foxes and deer on a sliver of East Coast green. J.D.'s work has appeared in Georgia Review, Missouri Review, Ninth Letter, and other journals.