The Hopper is a lively environmental literary magazine, along with stunning visual art, from Green Writers Press that strives towards an invigorated understanding of nature's place in human life. The annual publication in a series is part of a new phase in nature writing that seeks to include a modern consciousness in narratives of place.
When used for cider making, a hopper is a wooden or metal box that collects fruits before they are funneled down through a chute to the crusher. In old Vermont towns, it was common for the community of growers to share one cider press instead of each farmer purchasing and maintaining his or her own. Come fall, people would cart their apples or pears to the farm that kept the mill, and into the hopper their fruits would go—often mixing with the products of a neighboring grower.
The Hopper believes that in order to refashion our lives to accommodate the knowledge we have of our environmental crisis, we have a lot of cultural heavy lifting to do. To reacquaint ourselves meaningfully with the natural world we have to turn our interpretive, inquisitive, and inspired faculties upon it. Through what we publish and the communities we encourage, The Hopper seeks to be a leader in this cultural re-centering and can be used for environmental education and discussion.
Jenna Gersie has a master's in environmental studies with a concentration in writing and communications from Green Mountain College. Her master's thesis explores connections to nature and ideas of home through an ecocritical lens in the novels of Hermann Hesse. Jenna has participated in the Wildbranch Writing Workshop and the Bread Loaf Orion Environmental Writers' Conference. She served as an editorial intern and contributing writer at Dirt Magazine and is a copyeditor for The Goose, the official journal of the Association for Literature, Environment, and Culture in Canada. She currently works as a literature and writing teacher at The Island School in The Bahamas. Her website is jennagersie.org/.
Rose Alexandre-Leach edits Green Writers Press's growing children's publishing program, Sprouts for Kids, as well as fiction and nonfiction for The Hopper. Before joining Green Writers Press, Rose studied at Oberlin College,taught sciences at the Children's Museum & Theatre of Maine, andworked in elementary curriculum development. Born and raised on theriver in Vermont, Rose now lives in Brattleboro. She can be reached here.
