I wrote LUMBERJACK GIRL to bring the impact of blind-eye culture to center stage.

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My story starts when the Timber Wars, Endangered Species Act, and North American Free Trade Agreement caused half of all loggers to leave the industry.

But not us.

Instead, my twelve siblings and I—ages 3-14—replace grown men in the family logging business. We are shot at by protestors, go to bed hungry, and watch fellow loggers die. Still, we are resigned to our scanty living—in a tiny school bus on an isolated mountaintop—because it means we don’t take help.

When I suffer an egregious logging accident only to discover the lengths the family would go to rather than ask for help, the costs of our choice to continue—and the question of poverty as a structural problem or issue of personal responsibility—are brought to light.