Longlisted for the 2025 Highland Book Prize
After the upheaval of becoming a mother, walker Kerri Andrews finds herself carrying the idea that maybe the hills are no longer for her. Yet, as she begins to uncover hidden stories of other mothers who’ve walked, she realises that there may be a way back to adventure – and herself. So Kerri begins small, with walks along beaches and in cities, joined by women whose lives have also been reshaped by motherhood. And gradually, as her journeys grow bolder, drawing her to the valleys and peaks of her past, a new path begins to open. One that will offer the possibility of reclaiming both the mountains, and her freedom. The result is Pathfinding: On Walking, Motherhood and Freedom, an inspirational story for any mother who has ever felt the pull of the outside.
Kerri Andrews is a writer, editor and teacher. She is the author of the bestselling Wanderers: A History of Women’s Walking, and the editor of the first-ever anthology of women’s writing about walking, Way Makers. Her edition of Nan Shepherd’s Correspondence, the first publication of the letters of the famous Scottish nature writer, was nominated for the 2024 Saltire Book Awards Research Book of the Year. She is a keen walker in the Scottish hills and in the Tweed valley, where she lives. Kerri is the Director of Creative Writing at University College Cork and has previously worked as an academic at University of Strathclyde. She is the mother of two small and very energetic children, whom she is sometimes successful in persuading to go for a walk.