Wendell Berry, American writer, environmental activist, cultural critic, and farmer, has been one of my idols since I learned about his work in graduate school. Until then, I hadn’t witnessed such a marriage of academia, agriculture, and art in one person, and I fell into a fascinated type of love with his story. He became a star on the horizon, shining a hope for me to reconcile my own mosaic of desires, to interweave them as elegantly as he did. So, I started writing and farming, following in his footsteps. This afternoon, Driftless Area Magazine offered me a voice on their Agricultural Roots page, handing me a microphone to speak to a vastly wider audience. Rufus congratulated me, saying I was becoming the modern day Wendell Berry, and I absolutely beamed with pride, holding back a tear.~Joy