“Tele Aadsen entered commercial salmon fishing at seven years old on her parents’ homemade trolling boat, and what better guide could there be to a living, and a life, made at sea? Her clear-eyed essays overflow with warmth and precision, honoring work, gender, community, and creatures in complicated ways. Shearwaters and boat cats, potlucks and rescues, depression and recovery: Aadsen casts a wide net, and the reader can trust her eye, ear, mind, and heart. A fine contribution to the working woman’s canon.” —Christine Byl, author of Lookout and Dirt Work: An Education in the Woods

“From the slick deck of a rocking fishing boat, Tele Aadsen finds her footing and navigates the squalls of life with raw vulnerability and courage. What Water Holds is a manifesto to face the waves, embrace the unknown, and give thanks for all of it—storms and rainbows, scarcity and abundance, loss and love.” —Amy Gulick, author and photographer of The Salmon Way and Salmon in the Trees

Tele Aadsen met the ocean as a child when her parents traded jobs as veterinarians for a migratory life shared with sea birds, salmon, and fishermen. In the mist of the Tongass rainforest, Tele learned to explore life within endless shades of gray, coming to know firsthand how fine the line between life and death and the precarious balance of sea, land, and sky. She’s spent the four decades since trolling for salmon off Southeast Alaska. In What Water Holds, a series of lyrical essays first shared at Oregon’s Fisher Poets Gathering, Tele examines questions of equity, identity, community, the changing climate, and sustainability with loving, detailed attention, revealing the complexities within their many shades of gray. Weaving stories of what lies beneath the surface and the possibilities beyond, What Water Holds speaks to anyone who has fallen under the spell of the sea, struggled to find their own uncharted path, and wrestled with big philosophical questions—in short, anyone seeking to live a full, deeply considered life.

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