One Hell of a Year
Reflections on 2024 in 'the Hinterlands'
The farmer eyed the cold rice in the pot. Fatigued and out of breath from a jaunty and steep afternoon hike, we all huddled in his kitchen where chunks of leftover beef sat in a cold dutch oven. Warm California zephyrs glided through the rows of olive trees and in through the porch windows, and birds chirped madly below the leafless trees. Feeling hungry, I stared off into the distance at the landscape — a supremely fertile and variegated domain of hills tufted with glistening winter grasses, pomegranate trees, and crotchedy-looking blue oaks.
It looked as if Doctor Seuss had taken a long, heady sabbatical in Tuscany before being tasked with terraforming America’s far western valleys into a verdant, flowering terrarium for olive-eyed madonnas and brawny, sun-tanned orchardists. Glistening Edens hid in every valley, too stupefyingly beautiful to process. The high foothills above California’s Central Valley seem like an impossible paradise, and, faint as I was with lunchtime hunger, I surveyed them and drifted into a fugue, gazing out the window dumbly at the heavenly scenery — hypnotized. I began to see visions of Saint Isidore the Farmer in the lettuce field, leaning against his plough with a wine-skin draped over his shoulder, Crossing himself for the daily Angelus. The chanting began, the birdsong quickened, and Saint Michael the Archangel sailed upon the clouds of incense…
“Yes,” the farmer said, as if to call me back to earth from my sun-soaked reverie. “I think we can certainly scare up something to eat here for lunch.” And, smiling that broad white-toothed smile that only a California organic farmer can ever smile, he beckoned me toward the heavy redwood table to take a seat, proceeding to warm up the cold rice and leftover chunks of beef.
To “scare up” something to eat — what a delightful phrase. The limp, chilled leftovers of yesterday’s evening repast beckoned to our host’s hungry eyes; with a little salt and the heat of the stove, he animated them as a puppeteer animates his moppet to dance. And, startled by the gas glame below the pan and the pinches of seasoning and spritzes of home-grown olive oil, the onions and beef and rice all began to hiss and steam and bloom into glorious food. It was by the farmer’s efficient and stewardly hand that he “scared up” one hell of an excellent lunch.
Stuffed with delightful food and muscles happily aching from the hike, I stared off into space again, this time less vacantly than before, and meditated on the idea of “scaring up” a meal. It reminded me of the essay writing process that has, in this last year, become totally central to my daily life as Hickman’s Hinterlands has gone from being a hobby to being a full-time job. For to travel, and to read, and converse, and think, and pray — these are experiences that, once finished, lay dormant in the mind like leftovers in the back of the refrigerator. It is only once I get the (usually rare) opportunity to sit down at a desk and “scare them up” into an essay that you read about them here.
This is a process that, in the Year of Our Lord 2024, I have completed thirty-four times for Hickman’s Hinterlands, and six times for other publications. In all, these articles have averaged some 3,500 words apiece — totaling ~140,000 words in all (the average non-fiction book is, for the record, between 50,000 and 80,000 words). I also typed out a book manuscript last winter that weighed in at over 50,000 words, too.
In each instance of my writing another essay, the effort required for each varied wildly. In some cases, I sat down, pecked out a fine article that required no revisions or editing — and when published, landed well with readers and did splendidly. In others, I fought and struggled to secure even two hours’ time at a decent desk. Failing that, I pecked these pieces out with supreme effort at McDonald’s booths, in Amtrak seats, or even in my tent in the rain. Some of these required multiple drafts, anguished revisions, and involved writing 2-3 times as many words as I actually wound up publishing. Among these more difficult writing efforts, some sailed beautifully, and others flopped. There have been many incredible days of victory — and many very difficult periods, too.
In all, the writing game has seemed to be to be quite like hitchhiking — a life of high highs and low lows. Just as the hitchhiker has his dog days, flying across state lines, never waiting more than five minutes for his next lift — he has as many or more days where he is totally stuck, stranded, soaking wet or blistering hot or frigidly cold, and he wonders why he ever chose the adventure he did. So too with writing — and in this respect, I am nourished, for it is every bit as much of an adventure as hitchhiking ever was.
And so with this in mind, I thought I might share a sort of “wrap-up” of 2024, as it has been one of the most incredible years of my life for a thousand reasons. Equal parts exhausting and exhilarating — 2024 has been an adventure of the highest caliber, thanks largely to the more than 10,000 Hickman’s Hinterlands readers, as well as my 36,000+ X followers, several podcasts and publications, Rachel Sager, Paul Kingsnorth, Substack itself, and The Free Press. Let’s have a look at where I’ve been and what I’ve done in 2024, and where I’m going in 2025.
Substack itself gave me a tremendous boost this year, and did so more than once. I was made a “Substack Bestseller,” got featured in Substack Reads not once but twice, and was also distinguished as a Substack 2024 Publication of the Year. Big thanks to Rachel Sager, who writes The Ruins Project, for recommending my USA Rail Pass article for Substack Reads.
The year was fruitful insofar as podcast appearances and public speaking opportunities was concerned. I made my third appearance on Gord Magill’s Voice of Go(r)d podcast, and my first on Thriving the Future, My Latin Life, The Jim Rutt Show, and Doomer Optimism. I also spoke at two events associated with the Doomer Optimism crowd. At the Wagon Box in Story, Wyoming, I had the opportunity to make a presentation with my wife about the Falling Back in Love with America project. And at a Doomer Optimism event at the Open Eye Theatre in Margaretville, NY, Paul Kingsnorth and Matthew Crawford spoke, and I discussed localism with the author of a wonderful poem titled All the Ways You Can Stay. I also got a chance to interview Substack’s N.S. Lyons, who writes The Upheaval. All of these events and interviews were a tremendous amount of fun, and if you haven’t gotten the chance to listen to them yet, have a look at them!
I was also published not once but twice on TheBlaze, once in the Serpent Club Press journal, and was given a text interview at The Philosophical Rambler. And of course, I made my debut on Substack’s largest publication, The Free Press, which has taken my Falling Back in Love with America project to an audience of over 1,000,000 readers. This thirteen-essay series is still young, with many installments remaining between now and fall 2025. You can find the first, second, third, and fourth articles here, here, here, and here.
Along the way, I was also offered two book deals, invited to write for a new, as-yet-unnamed magazine, and encouraged to become a part of Catholic Land Movement’s effort to re-start The Cross and the Plough after a century-long hiatus. The Catholic Land Movement just received an apostolic blessing from Pope Francis after sending a delegation to the Vatican — and so it is a very exciting time for this most wholesome and much-needed endeavor. If any of you wish to go to their summer 2025 conference in Upstate New York, I will be there, and I hope to see you.
In typing all this out, I feel a bit obnoxious — like I am tooting my own horn. But I highlight these developments in my career solely because they are all so completely sudden: in 2023, I did not see a fraction of this kind of interest in my work. Because Hickman’s Hinterlands has been at the core of these successes and opportunities, I share them with you less to boast, and more to show you what you all have done for me. If nothing else, these incredible developments are a testament to the power of Substack and how Substack quite literally changes lives. It is with profound gratitude that I say you all have, beyond any reasonable doubt, totally changed my life by spurring my career forward with tremendous velocity.
Moreover, from 2023 to 2024, my free subscriber count increased a whooping 483%, and my income from Substack shot up by 599%. I am now earning nearly as much as an Alabama high school English teacher — and with upcoming developments in my personal life being what they are, I am immensely grateful.
This is because as of this week, my wife and I have become convinced that she may be with child. Therefore, I am now in the incredible and unforeseen position of thinking seriously about raising a family on a Substack-driven income. My thankfulness for this opportunity is almost too profound to express. Because of your paid subscriptions, the “family business” is now Hickman’s Hinterlands. The financial support you offer through this publication will buy our baby a cradle, keep our house warm, and keep our table full. Even as it now stands, virtually every meal we eat is paid for by you — and because of it, I am able to dedicate myself full-time to my craft as a writer. To this, all I can say is thank you, as sincerely as I am able to say it.
The possibility of parenthood also has us reflecting heavily upon the shape our lives should and will soon take. For though this year has been a year of constant travel — we are now looking forward to settling down on a permanent basis, and toward making a home back in the Adirondacks, not far from where I grew up. It is also where, in June of this year, Keturah and I got married — yet another massive milestone that 2024 has brought us.
Because I have not seen the twelve months of the year pass consecutively in a single place since I was sixteen years old — that is fourteen, going on fifteen years ago — we are convinced that it will be quite an adventure in and of itself to choose a place and stay there for a full year. While I have quite a lengthy backlog of travel-related pieces to publish here, expect more and more reflections on what it means to live a settled life, and more broadly, essays that celebrate my native Upstate New York and the Adirondack Park.
Speaking of travels, 2024 took us over 20,000 miles around North America, from Labrador Canada to California’s Central Valley. To recap where we’ve been:
I did a complete loop solo around the USA, from NY to Chicago to New Orleans to West Texas to LA to Oregon and back to Upstate NY via Montana on Amtrak’s USA Rail Pass.
Keturah and I honeymooned in Canada, traveling by VIA Rail to Nova Scotia, taking the ferry to Newfoundland, hitchhiking the entire west coast of that island to L’Anse Aux Meadows, ferrying to Labrador, and then taking a 3-day cargo ship to Rimouski, Quebec on the Gulf of Saint Lawrence. We then hitchhiked to Madawaska, Maine, and made our way south back to NY, stopping at one of our readers’ homes in Maine.
Then, we took a train to Iowa, then Denver, then Wyoming. We bussed to Montana and looped back to the Wagon Box in Story, WY, and made our way back east to Michigan, where we stayed on Beaver Island before going back to NY.
We stayed on the US-Canada border at Churubusco, NY, then jetted down to the Catskills for a Doomer Optimism event, down to NYC to hear Paul Kingsnorth’s Erasmus Lecture, and up to Northern NH to watch the election with some members of the Free State Project.
Finally, we took a sleeper train from Utica, NY to Elko, NV (which I will be reviewing soon), and made our way to Modesto, CA and up to Sonora, CA, where we presently are staying at a beautiful farm. Next, we’re headed to New Mexico on Thursday to interview a sheepherder.
If I’ve learned anything through this year’s travels, it’s that travel-writing is a full-time endeavor — and it is profoundly exhausting. For the last eight months, we have engaged almost 24/7 in a constant stream of extemporaneous logistics in terms of lodging, transport, and food. We are constantly together, constantly visiting peoples’ homes as guests, and constantly engaged in conversations with all sorts of people. In fact, these travels have been so extensive and fast-paced that I cannot keep up with writing about them — I quite literally do not have the time to craft these experiences into essays for this publication ‘on the go.’ With any luck, we’ll soon be holed up somewhere long enough that I’ll be able to write those essays, so that Hickman’s Hinterlands readers can catch up with where we’ve been, what we’ve seen, and all we’ve learned. And Keturah and I will be able to get some much needed REST.
In all, it’s been a hell of a year.
We got married, I met my estranged father, I wrote my first book manuscript, got my first ‘big’ writing gig with The Free Press, and was offered all sorts of fantastic opportunities to keep writing for a living. Keturah is likely pregnant, we’re in the middle of purchasing our “forever home” in the Adirondacks, and my wife also knitted me an incredible cable-knit cardigan. I crossed the Rubicon on Substack, ascending above 10,000 free subscribers, and doubled my following on X.
With so many lifelong aspirations achieved in so short a time, now I must ask myself — what is next? While only God knows what is really in store for us, I have a few ideas:
I will continue writing installations of the Falling Back in Love with America Project for The Free Press.
It is my ambition to write one book and to start another. The first will be on ‘Falling Back in Love’, and the second will be a lengthy work on my opposition to automobiles.
I may attempt to form some kind of an “IRL” gathering space in Northern New York, where, with any luck, we’ll be able to host regular events on both a monthly and an annual basis, to which paid subscribers to Hickman’s Hinterlands will be invited to attend. I will be making a separate post all about this idea very soon.
Snail mail strikes me as an underutilized medium for writing lately — I have some hope of starting a physical, hand-printed, sent-by-mail newsletter by the end of the year.
It is plausible that we will attend the event at the Wagon Box in Wyoming again; TBD on that.
We will prepare ourselves for our “Twelve months in place,” and for both parenthood and the settled life.
On our remaining travels, I will try my best to publish where we’ll be and when, in order to give readers a chance to meet up with us on our journeys. For example, we’re headed to Las Vegas, New Mexico this weekend, and would love to meet you. Further stops will include Saint Louis MO, northern Mississippi, New Orleans, and West Virginia; will update when we know the dates for each.
Finally, I’ll say that I am open to suggestions from readers, and am additionally glad to entertain any inquiries from editors, podcasters, writers, publishers, or those hosting IRL events at which they might like me or my wife to speak at. Shoot me a Direct Message on here and let’s collaborate.
In all, this has been the greatest year of my life, and it has been so fantastic because of you. Even if it all ended today, and became only a memory, I’d be glad for what I learned and experienced in 2024 — but amazingly, I have every reason to believe that Hickman’s Hinterlands will keep on trucking well into 2025 and beyond. Hell, I even suspect that this might just be “it” for me — that my work here on Substack will continue to be my life’s work. With any luck, we’ve found the balance between offering inspiring and edifying essays, devoting my life to writing, and putting food on the table for our family for many years to come.
God bless you all, and thank you very much. Please leave a comment if you have any feedback at all — I look forward to serving you for another year.
It took several Rail Pass USA essays to realize that you are not in your late 60s and retired. You are truly an Old Soul and write with such wisdom. One step at a time, you are doing fine.
I pray that it is so, and for its healthy fruition.
Nothing uplifts and directs a man like fatherhood.