At Least I Made It Out Alive: A Lesson I Learned from Adventure Writer Tim Cahill

(The Western Sierras; photo: Wikipedia)

I didn't plan on writing two reading-themed posts back-to-back, but life happens -- and a writer I admire, Tim Cahill (founding editor of Outside Magazine), faced death earlier this month, and his terrifying story was shared on the Outside Magazine site two days ago. After reading the white-knuckle piece, I thought back on the time I had the opportunity to meet him and learn a few lessons about adventure writing.

 Cahill, while a Montana resident, for a period of time, called California home -- he's an alumnus of the creative writing department of San Francisco State University, the college where I did my undergrad. And a couple of months before I graduated, he came to speak with my class. I was thoroughly enthralled by his visit, as I had just signed up to spend an entire summer living outdoors in Colorado (more on that another time), and wanted to learn from him how to approach writing on a subject -- the wild and a person's experience in it -- with such candor and vivid imagery that's appeared in his writings.

He said -- knowing things that, at the time, I just couldn't comprehend -- that if I got stuck, to just start the first sentence with "At least I..."

At least I made it out alive. And so did he.

You can check out a list of Tim Cahill's works on World Catalog; I suggest picking up Pecked to Death by Ducks.