Rahawa Haile is an Eritrean-American writer. In 2016 she thru-hiked the Appalachian Trail, and her writing about that journey has been published in places such as Outside Online and Buzzfeed. You can find her on Twitter and Instagram at @RahawaHaile. In this episode, Rahawa and I talk about writing and hiking. She shares her writing process, why she loves short stories and where you can find them, as well as what she’s currently working on. She talks all about her thru-hike of the AT, what she hoped to get out of it, what it was like hiking as a queer black woman, and who you should be following on social media if you care about diversifying the outdoors. I had the incredibly good fortune to meet Rahawa earlier this year, when we both attended the same weekend-long writing retreat with a small group of badass, creative, outdoorsy women, and it was such a treat to get to talk with her more deeply. I hope you enjoy our conversation! (more…)