In this issue, acclaimed nature writer Barry Lopez meditates on language and seeing; Australian writer Rebecca Giggs witnesses the monumental death of a stranded whale; science writer Fred Pearce describes the Herculean effort to keep nuclear Sellafield safe; Kathleen Jamie travels to the Alaskan wilderness; and Adam Nicolson investigates murder in rural Romania, with photographs by Gus Palmer.

Plus: unpublished extracts from the notebooks of Roger Deakin, introduced by Robert Macfarlane.

Fiction by Ann Beattie, Ben Marcus, David Szalay and Deb Olin Unferth. Poetry by Noelle Kocot, Maureen N. McLane, Ange Mlinko and Andrew Motion. Photography by Helge Skodvin with an introduction by Audrey Niffenegger.

Cover art � Stanley Donwood, Hurt Hill, 2013