About the Author

Rachel Hewitt is a writer and Lecturer in Creative Writing at Newcastle University, and Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. Her first book, the best-selling MAP OF A NATION- A BIOGRAPHY OF THE ORDNANCE SURVEY (2010), won the Royal Society of Literature Jerwood Award for Non-Fiction. She was awarded a Gladstone's Library Political Writing Residency for her second book, A REVOLUTION OF FEELING- THE DECADE THAT FORGED THE MODERN MIND (2017). Rachel is Director of the Newcastle Centre for the Literary Arts and received the prestigious work-in-progress prize, the Eccles British Library Writer's Award, for IN HER NATURE.

She loves trail-running and was 1st Female in the Punk Panther Ultra Series in 2020 and 3rd Female in the Hardmoors Marathon Series in 2019. Her longest run to date was the Punk Panther Dales Way Challenge (c. 83 miles) in August 2021. She lives in Yorkshire.

Reviews

An urgent tale of survival and subversion
*Economist, *Books of the Year**

Deft, absorbing and informative
*Times Literary Supplement*

Informative, essential reading on women's mountaineering wrapped within a profoundly personal memoir. There is joy amid the anger and hurt Rachel conveys on her journey of personal recovery through recovering the stories of her newfound outdoors foremothers. I'm sure many women will feel seen in these pages. The peaks of joy, the lessons learned during the lows, and the rallying cry for our right to feel safe outdoors will stay with me
*The Great Outdoors Magazine*

A highly original work… Quietly angry and fiercely feminist, it’s the book I’ve been encouraging everyone to read
*Critic, *Books of the Year**

Rachel Hewitt's writing is always elegant, fierce, intelligent and truthful. No one writes as well as she does about endurance - and survival
*HELEN LEWIS, author of Difficult Women*

A book of courage, grief, anger, wisdom and fortitude. It demands our attention
*HERMIONE LEE, author of Virginia Woolf*

An urgent, powerful, inspiring book about women making a space for themselves in the macho world of outdoor pursuits-one that reflects on what we risk and what we gain by turning our faces to the wind
*CAL FLYN, author of Islands of Abandonment*

Insightful, compelling, and rightfully outraged, In Her Nature brilliantly reclaims the hidden histories and contemporary experiences of women running, hiking, climbing, and taking up space in the world. An essential read, as well as a moving, revealing, and empowering one
*JON MCGREGOR, author of Reservoir 13*

This astonishingly brave, deeply important and emboldening book offers hope and encouragement for women to find freedom and solace in the joyous expanse of the natural world
*HELEN CARR, author of What is History, Now?*

A stunning, raw and powerful book - about grief and putting ourselves back together, about freedom and the fight for it, and about strength and the hunger to test it
*TIFFANY WATT-SMITH, author of The Book of Human Emotions*