“A Field Guide to Place” is an exploration of place, land, and identity, particularly in the American West. This thesis seeks to better understand our positionality in the natural world, and how we can use literature to communicate that. This thesis uses The Meadow by James Galvin to explore place-based creative nonfiction and individual relationships with land. I challenge authorial representations of place as singular and simple, instead invoking the subjunctive mood to better understand the complexity of history that is ingrained in place. This thesis found that place is inherently subjective and dependent on identity, history, and politics of land. In our efforts to build more sustainable and just communities, we must consider the subjunctive in the places that we love
