“Six Walks: In the Footsteps of Henry David Thoreau” is a memoir and travelog by Ben Shattuck, published by Tin House.
Living through a dark period of early adulthood, Ben Shattuck, in quiet desperation, began to trace 19th century writer and naturalist Henry David Thoreau’s hikes around the northeast. Many miles and several years later, Shattuck has written a meditative journey toward personhood - expressed by placing Thoreau’s writing alongside Shattuck’s writing and illustration.
Ben Shattuck, a former Teaching-Writing Fellow and graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, is a recipient of the PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize and a 2019 Pushcart Prize. He is the director of the Cuttyhunk Island Writers’ Residency and curator of the Dedee Shattuck Gallery. His writing can be found in the Harvard Review, The Common, the Paris Review Daily, Lit Hub, and Kinfolk Magazine. He lives with his wife and daughter on the coast of Massachusetts, where he owns and runs a general store built in 1793