A Leaky Tent Is a Piece of Paradise: 20 Young Writers on Finding a Place in the Natural World

by Bonnie Tsui (Editor)

This is not your parents’ nature writing! A distinctly contemporary take on the genre, A Leaky Tent Is a Piece of Paradise features original essays by twenty gifted writers, all thirty and under, whose strong and diverse voices redefine nature writing for the twenty-first century.
Editor Bonnie Tsui’s cast of accomplished contributors wrestle with integrating nature into their lives while putting down roots—often in urban environments. Included here are the New Yorker’s Andrea Walker on learning to hunt with her father; noted fishing author and painter James Prosek on the mythology and mystery of eels; writer Hugh Ryan on being taught how to pitch a tent by a six-foot drag queen at a Radical Faeries camp in Tennessee; poet Cecily Parks on reconciling her adventuress self with her fear of lightning; and African-American journalist Alex Kellogg on rethinking his ideas about race and identity on a visit to Kenya and Eritrea.
Brimming with insight and humor, A Leaky Tent Is a Piece of Paradise rewards us with new perspectives on personal identity in relation to nature, and on the impact of landscape and place on our lives.

Genres: Nonfiction, Nature, Essays, Travel, Short Stories, Anthologies

312 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2007

About the author

Bonnie Tsui is a longtime contributor to The New York Times and the bestselling author of Why We Swim, a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice and a Time magazine and NPR Best Book of the Year; it has been translated into ten languages and was a Goodreads Choice Awards Finalist in Science. Bonnie is also the author of American Chinatown, which won the Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature, and Sarah and the Big Wave, a children’s book about the first woman to surf Mavericks and a Junior Library Guild Gold Standard selection. She is a consultant for the Hulu television series Interior Chinatown. Her new book, On Muscle, will be published in April 2025. Her work has been recognized and supported by Harvard University, the National Press Foundation, the Mesa Refuge, and the Best American Essays series. She lives, swims, and surfs in the Bay Area. 

Reviews

[Rashaan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Every year, if one's lucky enough to call themselves a Composition instructor she is tasked with the Herculean challenge of hooking classrooms full of incoming freshman into the written word. We feel as if we have one shot and one shot only to bait and reel these squirrely minds into the power of language. The bait used this fall was the Sierra Club's latest collection A Leaky Tent is a Piece of Paradise: 20 Young Writers on Finding a Place in the Natural World, edited by Bonnie Tsui. From exploring the Maori folklore of New Zealand eels in James' Prosek piece, "Eelian Thinking," to tracking the seasonal cycle at a Brooklyn Farmer's Market in a beautifully lyrical work by Liesl Schwabe's "The End of Strawberries, The Beginning of Peaches" each appealed to my students and earned rave reviews. There was something for everyone. Even the students who didn't consider themselves nature lovers were able to relate to at least one of the essays.

As much as the essays pay tribute to the environmental movement, some of the thornier issues may still prick readers, particularly the fact that many of these writers come from privileged Euro American backgrounds, people, who, like most green activists and adventure-explorers can afford to take a three months trek in the Arctic or a cross-country road trip, shrugging off family obligations without a care for economic worries. Its a class and cultural thing. The two writers, Lilith Wood's "God in the Cannery" and the earlier mentioned Schwabe, connect with nature through working class labor and reveal a completely different insight from the ground level looking up. Their relationship to the wild is unwieldy and rattles the nerves in the most profound and necessary of ways. Students struggled with these works because their meaning wasn't so obvious. That's a good thing!

Though sometimes the humor in many of these essays can be distracting, overall each piece reveals sincere, wise, and exquisite voices. Crammed with humor and spiked with profound insight, the best non-fiction weaves priceless gems of facts, curious information, anecdotal bits of history and lore as the personal narrative pulls readers forward. A Leaky Tent is an excellent demonstration of clear, engaging, and vivid writing. Definitely a keeper. I'll be using this collection again for composition classes to come.

[Maddi Petro · Rating 2 out of 5]

I liked 2 or 3 of the stories. The authors are all very different writers, so if I liked 1 writer's style, it only lasted for their 1 story. I didn't like a lot of their writing styles or the topics, so most of the book was very boring and I was tired of reading it. I only kept reading cuz I hoped I would like later stories since the authors have different styles. I figured I was bound to like at least a few. Somehow the ones I enjoyed were the shortest ones.

I also didn't think many of the stories had enough to do with nature to be "nature writing." I decided to read this book cuz I wanted to see if I liked nature writing, and I don't think I was able to find that out for myself cuz there was very little to do with nature in many of the stories. Or maybe this is typical for nature writing, and in that case, I'm not a fan.

For example, one of the longest stories in the book describes tennis courts for like 20 pages. It took more 3 days to finish this story because it was so boring! And the only way it related to nature was cuz some tennis courts are outside and tennis brings out the "primal behaviors" in humans or something. They were really reaching to try to make this story about nature, but I think they failed. A few other stories were like that also, where 90% or more of the story had nothing to do with nature.

[Greg Goodrum · Rating 3 out of 5]

As with most collections, different selections will strike readers differently, and this is no exception. I really enjoyed Tim Neville's ode to moving into a tent while in a fit of high school angst, Nate Johnson's paddling thoughts, and James Prosek's refreshingly readable natural history short on the world of eels. Most other authors I found enjoyable, but with less hook than the above mentioned authors. The only story that I did not enjoy was Nicole Davis' road trip tale that really just struck me as the antithesis of a good road trip, laced with slightly veiled entitlement and very of human or geographic interest to grip the reader. The element that stood out most to me in this collection was it thankfully delivering on the line that sold, it is in fact a very different take on nature writing. Not only did all of the authors approach their work in a journalistic form, very refreshing from the monotonous narrative and scientific forms that define most modern nature writing, but the writers across the board stepped away from the focus on nature and humanity's role in it on a large scale. Instead, they dive into nature's impact on people at a very personal level, making each story relatable, even if less than stirring. My only other complaint was that there is a strong NYC bias among the authors. While not apparent initially, NYC's minor role in many stories leads to a limiting of the scope of urban elements here to primarily two locations (San Francisco also appears somewhat frequently). These are small issues though, and do little to affect what is a successful, if not always gripping account of modern suburban- and urbanite journalists reflecting on what connects them to the natural world.

[Cynthia · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked how it was about people relating to nature even in places the most distanced from it, but the writing was somewhat a deal breaker for me. High quality teen essays are still teen essays and as a result a lot of them had that college-admission-essay feel to it that seemed strained.

Still an excellent collection though, even though I didn't appreciate it myself, and definitely worth checking out if you are interested in this sort of nature writing at all.

[Monica · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn't finish it, but I probably won't read all of the essays in here. Particularly liked the ones on the boy who lived outside his parents' house in a tent, the self-described sissy who goes camping (at the Radical Faerie sanctuary in Tennessee) for the first time, and the man who swam from Alcatraz to SF.

I skipped several of the essays, though -- just couldn't get into them.

[Keleigh]

The SN&R Arts Editor, Jonathan Kiefer, has a piece in here...And he missed the Level 1 workshop to do a public reading from it. :)

[Lisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is lighthearted, and perfect for how I'm feeling about nature and the world right now. There's so much beauty and adventure out there that we just need to get out and see, do, touch, feel!

[LINDA · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is a compilation of short stories by 20 different young writers.

I will report more when I have finished.

[Lauren Tamraz · Rating 4 out of 5]

a great anthology of travel writing all by people under the age of 30-- no flashy hotels, tons of cash, or safety nets involved.

[Tiffany · Rating 4 out of 5]

featuring an essay by Lilith Wood

[Matthew · Rating 5 out of 5]

a triumph!

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book - especially the essay about the canoe trip to the Arctic.

[Jackson Lathe · Rating 2 out of 5]

this only gets two stars because there are about two stories in this that are worthwhile reading. The rest reads like badly coached high school english essays.

[Tim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Being a total outdoors geek, this was a great book. There were some stories I liked better than others. For the most part though, they all had merit. A must read for fellow outdoor geeks.

[Gavin Hribar · Rating 5 out of 5]

cool essays on outdoorsy topics as well as general life reflections. very well written and by 20 somethings so it's easy to connect with them.

[Ruth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nice collection of essays.