Way Makers: An Anthology of Women’s Writing about Walking

The follow-up to the bestselling Wanderers, Kerri Andrews’s Way Makers, now available in paperback, is the first anthology of women’s writing about walking. Moving from the eighteenth century to the present day, and across poetry, letters, diaries, novels and more, this anthology traces a long tradition of women’s walking literature. Walking is, for the women included in this anthology, a source of creativity and comfort; it is a means of expressing grief, longing and desire. It is also a complicated activity: it represents freedom but is also sometimes tinged with danger and fear. What cannot be denied any longer is that walking was, and continues to be, an activity full of physical and emotional significance for women. This anthology is testament to the rich literary heritage created by generations of women walker-writers over the centuries.

About the Author :
Kerri Andrews is Reader in Women's Literature and Textual Editing at Edge Hill University. She is the author of Wanderers: A History of Women Walking and has written for The Guardian, Trail magazine and others. She lives in Peebles, Scotland.

Review :
From the 18th century to the present day, and taking in poetry, letters, diaries, novels and more, this anthology traces the long tradition of women writing about walking. Among the many writers included are Mary Wollstonecraft, Jane Austen, Raynor Winn, Cheryl Strayed, Sarah Moss and Polly Atkin. Way Makers is a scintillating and exciting collection of women's voices. It was while researching her bestselling 2021 non-fiction book, Wanderers: A History of Women Walking, that Kerri Andrews realised there was no anthology dedicated to the subject . . . Her answer is Way Makers, which lays claim to being 'the first anthology of women's writing about walking' . . . The book includes extracts from novels, letters, journals, guidebooks, essays, poetry and even 'the occasional play'. Importantly, it covers female writers from 'a range of social, racial and bodily backgrounds' and the walks they make physically and in their minds . . . Andrews' ground-breaking Way Makers [has] more than 70 entries spanning the centuries. Way Makers offers a wonderful array of excerpts from prose and poetry spanning 400 years, assembled by Kerri Andrews. Women walk for necessity as well as fun, to see the world, rejoice in nature and experience the awe of new vistas. Overall these pieces conjure an exhilarating sense of the freedom conferred on women by walking, despite the dangers and challenges. An anthology that celebrates the literary heritage created by generations of women walker-writers. Bringing together 75 works across numerous genres from the eighteenth century through the present day, Way Makers stands as a testament to women’s longstanding creative engagement with the deceptively simple practice of walking. Although the first of its kind in some ways, Way Makers joins a small but rich body of popular literary histories of walking that attend to women’s experience . . . a welcoming, meditative exploration of the complex and often contradictory meanings that can emerge when women take to the road or the trail . . . an eminently readable volume . . . Ultimately, Way Makers is sure to provide scholarly and casual readers alike with a fresh perspective on what it means to move through the world on foot. Andrews has given us an invigorating look at what the literature of women’s walking has to offer, and I hope this volume will inspire others to follow in her footsteps.