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Hutchinson has acquired rights to Common Ground by journalist Rob Cowen.
Senior editor Sarah Rigby acquired UK and Commonwealth rights to the title, the story of how Cowen came “to discover a forgotten realm and its inhabitants, from Steph Ebdon at The Marsh Agency.
Common Ground recounts how Cowen was given an old map as a Christmas present, which revealed a half a square mile patch of wood, meadow, hedge and river a mile from where he lived. While Cowen was exploring the piece of land, it seemed to become ever more bound up in things happening in his own life.
Hutchinson said: “The arc of the book shifts between the perspectives and stories of this edge-land’s inhabitants: Rob, a fox, tawny owl, brown hare, badger, butterfly, swift, mayfly, roe deer, nettle, the other people who have passed through this place and, finally, his son.
“And through these animals, and people, we are offered a unique, visionary multiple-view portrait of a single piece of ground.”
Rigby said: “Common Ground will offer a new angle on writing about nature and our experiences within it. I am certain that it will become a classic of its kind.”
Cowen writes a woodland column for the Independent, and one on the outdoors for the Telegraph, and previously co-authored a "how to" guide with Leo Critchley, Skimming Stones and Other Ways of Being in the Wild (Coronet Books).
Hutchinson will publish in spring 2015 with a Windmill paperback to follow in early 2016.