Closer to Nowhere

From 2018 to 2021, award-winning writer Thorpe Moeckel made several canoe expeditions through the Lower Canyons of the Rio Grande around Big Bend Country. He brought background reading and thinking about the natural and human history of the place, as well as about its current states, and here he’s distilled all of that, including personal trials and discoveries, into a wild river trip of a book. With sensitivity, ranginess, and intimacy, Closer to Nowhere reckons with the stark wonders and complexities of the Chihuahua desert ecosystem, the river and border that cuts through it, and the pressures of deep time as well as the contemporary historical moment.

Guided by, while often guiding on, rivers all his life, Moeckel in this book “flips the boat” and immerses readers in those presences, material and spiritual, that are most palpable when one lets go to the river and its tangled interrelations.

“Closer to Nowhere is a stunning hybrid work that explores borders, connection, loss; that features talking rivers and catfish and the rushing water and towering canyons of the Rio Grande; and that interrogates the bewilderment and complexity of being alive with wistfulness and beauty.” —Karen E. Bender, author of The Words of Dr. L

“Personal diary, log book, field notes, meditation, verse, chronicle, fable, to-do list, Closer to Nowhere is, ultimately, a splendid tribute to a place which unfolds in a myr - iad of ways but that, no matter how much we think we know it, remains untamed.” —Juan Manuel Portillo, author of Vigilia

“Those of us who choose to live our lives on and in rivers experience them as more than metaphor – as the tangible lifeblood of our living, evolving planet. Thorpe Moeckel captures that pulse as few can, and he shares it beautifully in his ode to the Rio Grande, Closer to Nowhere.” —Wickliffe Walker, author of Torrents as Yet Unknown.

Thorpe Moeckel is the author of eight books, which include poetry, a middle grade novel, nonfiction, and hybrid works. His writing has been widely anthologized and honored with NEA, Javits, Hoyns, Sustainable Arts, and Kenan Fellowships. He has taught at Hollins University since 2005, and he loves exploring around Western Virginia, where he lives, and beyond.