Laura Julier is former editor of Fourth Genre. She is the coeditor of Nonfiction, the Teaching of Writing, and the Influence of Richard Lloyd-Jones. She currently works as a hospital chaplain and lives in Iowa City.

"Laura Julier in Off Izaak Walton Road marks out the perimeter of the losses in her life, not by confiding them to the page but by careful indirection. She brings the reader with her as she retreats to a house on a rural road and season by season discovers the particulars of the world that goes on without all of us. Her power of attention is formidable, and her prose is at every point lucid." - Sven Birkerts, author of The Miro Worm and the Mysteries of Writing"Off Izaak Walton Road asks us why some places hold a grip on our imaginations, what it is about these places that allows us to be more fully ourselves, and how these places change the stories we tell about who we are and the world in which we live. Written with clarity, candor, and a tenderness of attention that is profoundly moving, this book shows the often-transformative power of loss, solace, and joy." - Lacy M. Johnson, judge for the 2024 River Teeth Literary Nonfiction Prize

• Preface: Holy placeOverture: Early March, off Izaak Walton RoadPart I: Snow, Fire, SilenceOnce I owned a houseThis is not the placeIt began like thisIzaak Walton RoadLossDays’ waning lightLeavingPart II: Wind, Wood, MemoryOn the walls 1The cabinThe giftOn the mantelSleeping with animalsOn the walls 2The space outsideDerechoPart III: Sky, Road, BloodJanuaryWoodstovesMassacre at the cabin, or Where’s the carcass?Bald eaglesThe owlWherein I rescue the latest mouseIn which no good deed goes unpunishedA pleasant interludeThe wisdom of clichéThings have come to thisIn which pride goeth before a fallListening to the riverBald eagles, againSeeing birdsA reaction delayedBird notes 1: I begin to pay attentionWe walk the roadBird notes 2: By the bookBird notes 3: The body knows before knowing remembersCity girlNeighborsThe barred owl, againThe marshBird notes 4: If you ignore it, they will comeRising thermalsIn the ditchesThe wildlife insideIn which I am tauntedI step outside in late JuneIn which I finally outsmart the catThe last rescueLeaving, againSeason endPart IV: Earth, Marsh, SkinGoing homeThe marsh, differentlyAccident or refugeIzaak Walton’s leagueRescueRoadkillGarbageTargetJohnson County QuarryIzaak and I, fishingOwnershipJames McCollister’s farmFirst recordsFirst nationsFirst flood: From Devonian sea to the river outside my doorOwnership, differentlyPart V: River, Night, PrayerIn the middle of the riverRiver’s sludgeThe river’s courseDamming the riverThe flood of the centuryAs long as you choose to live hereWetlandsOn the riverPart VI: The locked cabin, the swollen river, the riven road, the open heartI am locked outThe next house and the nextCirclingThe river reclaims the landAfter the floodThe open heartAcknowledgments