“A trace is, simply, a line etched across a plane. A feature like the famous Natchez Trace (featured in Eudora Welty novels) is, then, a line in the dirt etched across the land. . . . Traces are old game trails that have evolved into human footpaths. They are ancient thoroughfares first cut by hooves and claws, and followed by indigenous walkers.”

Luis Alberto Urrea
Home Ground: Language for an American Landscape
Edited by Barry Lopez

I often find myself poring through this book when looking for a title for a new series. It’s an alphabetical list of vocabulary used to characterize the landscape. The short essays are written by forty-five writers, from journalists to novelists. It’s enjoyable to flip through and read about the landscape, its unique forms and its history. Goat prairie, hassock, infant stream, pahoehoe, racetrack valley all are described by writers including Jon Krakauer, Barbara Kingsolver, and William Kittridge.

This series was hard to title. It feels like both a zeroing in on the details and widening out to the panoramas of geography. It’s funny how these little pieces can come to be imbued with so much meaning. In the photo above, you can see their beginnings, edges painted and waiting for the next step. They look like the outlines of states to me, with their combinations of straight-edges and meandering lines; some edges cut by rivers and some superimposed by the straight lines of map makers who want to create order out of chaos.

The title Trace plays on all these meanings. It is both a verb and a noun. It is a path of desire. It is a hint of something left behind. It is the act of going over a line with a pencil. All of these and more. It works.