Jennifer Rieger’s debut memoir, Burning Sage, is a marvelous collection of essays about growing up, family, teaching, community, and the wonders of nature and the human heart. Rieger fearlessly captures the way in which the ashes of the past speak to the journeys of the present– how even in barren dust, roots linger and discovery is born. Rieger’s essays weave together small-town, childhood summers, the revelations of young parenting, and two decades of classroom connections, all of which lead to the Pacific Northwest, New England, Oxford University, Italy, and ultimately, back to the blank page of a writer who finds purpose.