A Wild Welcome,

Night River Wood is the online space of James Roberts, whose name is so common that if you searched for him on Google you’d think he is either a rugby player or interior designer – which he is not. James is a writer and artist who mostly works from a narrowboat called Masquerade.

WRITING

James’s non-fiction book, Two Lights – Walking in Landscapes of Loss and Life, was published in March 2023 by September Publishing. It explores biodiversity loss through the metaphor of twilight. You can read the short essay, Chorus, which was the source of the book, below.

An account of the search for the wildness left in our world – spanning continents and geological eras, skies and oceans, animals and birds, planets and stars.

“With dizzying acuity and insight Roberts paints a portrait of a life and its landscapes, creating precious connections with wild creatures and places, from swans in the Cambrian Mountains to wolves in the Pacific Northwest. By walking at dawn and dusk, in the two lights of awakening and deepening, through the stripped, windswept hills of Wales, and the jungles and savannahs of Africa, he tries to navigate from a soul-stripping sense of loss towards hope in the future. 

In the presence of wild creatures he finds a way back to life.”

ARTWORK

James produces one print edition each month.

Using the absolute minimum of materials – a brush, a few drops of ink, a splash of water, and a pinch of salt he attempts to capture the fluidity and movement of wild things, allowing forms to conjure themselves from the faintest outlines – ravens, owls, bears, wolves. This striving for an almost creaturely simplicity searches for grace through creative practice as light on the earth as leaves.