NO MAN’S LAND: Unpacking One Woman’s Worth on the Colorado Trail
Winner of the 2026 IndieReader Discovery Awards in Women’s Issues, Nonfiction
What’s the book’s first line?
“Thunder rumbled through the forested gulch where I hiked alone, deep in the San Juan Mountains of southern Colorado.”
What’s the book about? Give us the “pitch”.
When depression pushes her to the edge, a 45-year-old woman leaves behind motherhood, marriage, and expectations—hiking 500 miles through the Colorado wilderness to confront her past, reject female conditioning, and reclaim her will to live.
What inspired you to write the book? A particular person? An event?
At age 45, I was contemplating suicide and had no idea how I had gotten there. My memoir explores how a lifetime of female conditioning and suppressed trauma forged my dangerously low sense of self-worth. At first, I was writing the book for me, to synthesize what I had learned about myself during my 500-mile hike through the Colorado Rockies.
Once I started putting pen to paper, I knew I was writing this book for others who were suffering in silence. At that point, I began writing the book I wish existed when I was at my lowest point back in 2016.
What’s the main reason someone should really read this book?
To feel inspired and hopeful. To be reminded we are all capable of change at any point in life.
This is NOT a book about trying to achieve the fastest known time on a long-distance hiking trail. Rather, it’s about slowing down, unplugging, and stripping away the ego to truly focus on Self care. Read this book to experience the unfiltered emotional highs and lows of the human experience, as told through a female lens. This story is for any human who is struggling with low self-worth and depression, to help them know they are not alone. I’ve been told this memoir gives men a better understanding of the emotional, and sometimes physically dangerous, terrain women must navigate to survive in the world.
Both men and women, hikers and non-hikers alike, are connecting with my memoir. Despite the title No Man’s Land, the book’s themes are universal to the human condition, regardless of gender identity.
Is this the first book that you’ve written?
Yes, this is my debut memoir.
What do you do for work when you’re not writing?
I’m a full-time freelance writer.
What’s the best and the hardest part of being an indie?
The best part of being an indie author-publisher: I have total control over everything, and the buck stops with me.
The hardest part of being an indie author-publisher: I have total control over everything, and the buck stops with me.
What’s a great piece of advice that you can share with fellow indie authors?
If you ask ten different authors the best route to publishing your book, you’re going to get ten different answers. We have a saying in the hiking world: hike your own hike. Meaning, choose the gear, set the pace, and take the path that feels best for YOU.
Would you go traditional if a publisher came calling? If so, why?
I would welcome a conversation, but with a critical eye. I’m curious about what they would bring to the table.
Look, being an indie author-publisher is incredibly hard work. It’s multiple full-time jobs, switching back and forth between the creative and business-minded sides of my brain, every day. If a traditional publisher came calling, they would need to prove how working with them would vastly improve my life as an author, how it would better serve my book, and how it would help my readers and the loyal indie bookstores that carry my title.
Is there something in particular that motivates you (fame? fortune?)
When a reader tells me, “Your book showed up in my life when I needed it most.”