Out on the Deep Blue True Stories of Daring, Persistence, and Survival from the Nation's Most Dangerous Profession

This is the first collection of dramatic, first-person accounts of commercial fishing written by the men and women who work in the nation's most dangerous occupation. Nineteen diverse fisher-writers, from the famous to the unknown, take the reader swordfish harpooning on the Georges Banks, winter crabbing in the Bering Sea, sea-urchin diving off Maine, herring fishing in Alaska, shark-harpooning off Scotland and points between. Together, they plumb the extremes of living, working, and sometimes dying at sea, creating the most intensely personal portrait of fishing and fishermen to date. The best writing on commercial fishing is gathered here, blending the voices of such well-known writers as Peter Mathiessen, Gavin Maxwell, Linda Greenlaw, Spike Walker, and John Cole, together with experienced and emerging writers, many of whom have spent much of their lives on the water. With its layers and rich textures, this collection will have strong, enduring appeal to loves of nonfiction. Contributors: Marie Beaver John Cole Michael Crowley Wendy Erd Leslie Leyland Fields Robert Fritchey Joel Gay Linda Greenlaw Seth Harkness Nancy Lord Peter Mathiessen Gavin Maxwell William McCloskey Paul Molyneaux Debra Nielsen Toby Sullivan Martha Sutro Joe Upton Spike Walker

Since 1978, Leslie Leyland Fields has followed the schools of ready-to-spawn fish out to a remote island where she and her husband fish commercially for salmon. With five children, ranging in ages from thirteen to six months, the island now has a population of seven.

Her essays have recently appeared in The Atlantic, Orion, The Christian Science Monitor, Experiencing Nature: A Creative Nonfiction Reader, The Best of Oregon Quarterly, and others. She is the recent winner of the Virginia Faulkner award for excellence in writing.