FALLOW GROUND

Available December 1, 2026

The last thing Lisa expects to hear while lying spread-eagled on an infertility exam table is a voice inside her head. As the daughter of an environmental biologist, she traded prayers for science books long ago. Even so, the message is clear: When are you going to get the hint, Lisa? Motherhood isn’t in the cards for you.

Did it come from her? From Fate? By clinging to her dream of motherhood despite mounting odds, is she attempting to defy nature itself?

Fallow Ground follows Lisa and her husband James from the estuaries of Florida to the wilderness of Alaska, through infertility treatments, a changing marriage, and the slow unraveling of the future they imagined together.

When they can no longer avoid the reality of a life without children, Lisa is forced to confront a grief her guidebooks never prepared her for. Finding her way forward means refusing to accept that her new life is barren. Instead, she begins to glimpse it as fallow: depleted, resting, and perhaps never actually meant to grow what she wanted from it.

Blending memoir and nature writing, Fallow Ground is the story of what happens when the life you planned refuses to take root—and the delicate, unexpected work of discovering what may grow in its place.