Just in time for National Great Outdoors Month, Sunbury Press has published a memoir by Tataboline Enos about rural PA’s growing tourism and outdoor recreation movement. The book, PROUDLY MADE: A Story of Reinvention in the Big Woods and Small Towns of the Pennsylvania Wilds is officially being released Tuesday, June 3 under Sunbury’s Catamount Press imprint, which focuses on Northern Appalachia. It has received advance praise from multiple quarters, locally and nationally. Many local booksellers already have the book available.
PROUDLY MADE tells the story of how the Pennsylvania Wilds brand and movement were born, intertwined with Enos’ own family history and backstory of growing up in rural PA and how and why she came to be one of the movement’s chief instigators and champions.
Written in an open, vulnerable way that has been compared to Cheryl Strayed’s writing in WILD: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail, Enos, a former journalist and founder and CEO of the PA Wilds Center, the backbone nonprofit for the regional movement, said that while the book was a personal project, she hopes it helps advance the Wilds cause and others like it.
“In writing this book, I wanted more people to understand that the PA Wilds work is bigger than any one person or organization and critical to the future of rural PA,” said Enos, whose family has lived in the region for at least four generations. “In order to do that, I knew I was going to have to take some risks, to personalize it and be as real as I could in the writing, including about my own skepticism, flaws and shortcomings.”
Many people and places from across the PA Wilds region are highlighted in PROUDLY MADE. Enos said she interviewed more than 30 people for the book, enlisted three dozen others to read early versions of the manuscript and provide feedback on key events, and also relied heavily on public records and meetings to craft the narrative. But mostly, she said, it is based on her personal experience.
Enos said she is grateful that so many people were willing to share their recollections and insights with her for the memoir.
“Narratives about a place are powerful things,” Enos said. “Too often in rural America, and definitely in Appalachia, they are told by people from outside and through a lens that is often negative. The Wilds work had some rocky moments, but our region stuck with it, and to me what we’ve accomplished together is such an inspiring story about this place and the people who live here. I mean, there’s a lot of ways to get tourism development wrong. And rural PA is doing a lot of things right. We’ve become a national model because of it.”
Enos said she felt a responsibility to try to tell that story. “In such a large rural region as ours, with vast distances between many towns and limited media and connectivity, only a handful of people who were traveling the region regularly for this work had visibility on the collective story that was unfolding, and of those, only one spent a decade as a journalist and went to bed each night writing chapters in her head. At first I tried to duck the responsibility of it. Writing a book is so much work, and it doesn’t pay, at least not for first time authors like me. I have three kids, a husband, other responsibilities. But it just gnawed at me. It wouldn’t let me go.”
PROUDLY MADE has received advance praise from Pennsylvania’s Office of Outdoor Recreation and national experts and practitioners in the rural development, sustainable outdoor recreation and tourism spaces, as well as from several writers, including local authors John Schlimm, Sam MacDonald, and New York Times best-selling writer Kristine Gasbarre, who also just published a memoir, SHOW DON’T TELL: A Writer, Her Teacher, and the Power of Sharing our Stories, about one of the teachers she had growing up in rural PA (Hatchette Book Group).
Several local companies have collaborated on PROUDLY MADE. The cover design was done by Laughing Owl Press Company co-owner Andrea Lanich and the cover photo by Allegheny Outfitters owner Piper VanOrd. A number of small businesses and nonprofits have also signed up to carry and sell the book, including Otto Bookstore in Williamsport; Wilds Sonshine Factory in Kane; Allegheny Outfitters in Warren; Elk County Council on the Arts in Ridgway; Straub Brewery in St. Marys; Elk Country Visitor Center in Benezette; Cameron County Chamber and Artisan Center in Emporium; Heritage-Education & Welcome Center in Johnsonburg; Pennsylvania Lumber Museum in Potter County; Good Neighbor Bookstore in Jamestown, NY; Stateline Speedway in Busti, NY; and Fireside Books in Palmer, Alaska. The book is also available through ShopThePAWilds.com, SunburyPress.com, BarnesandNoble.com, BooksAMillion.com, BookShop.org, Amazon.com, and independent bookstores worldwide.
Shane Oschman, Chair of the PA Wilds Center’s Board of Directors, said the nonprofit also plans to carry and sell PROUDLY MADE through its three mission-driven gift shops, called PA Wilds Conservation Shops, which have locations along the Knox-Kane Rail Trail in Marienville, Forest County, and at Kinzua Bridge and Leonard Harrison State Parks in McKean and Tioga counties, respectively.
“PROUDLY MADE is a personal reflection by our nonprofit’s founder on her life and journey as a woman, mother and leader in the rural landscape initiative. It is a heartfelt testament to her passion for the work of the Pennsylvania Wilds and her determination to see it through. While the views presented are her own, not necessarily those of the Center, the PA Wilds Center team is incredibly proud of Ta for accomplishing this milestone in her writing career and for her visionary leadership to grow the outdoor recreation economy in the Pennsylvania Wilds. Like other retailers, we have decided to sell her book at our mission-driven stores. We purchase that inventory from the publisher like any other retailer. Ta obviously is not involved in those purchasing decisions to avoid any conflict of interest.”
A free Book Club Discussion Guide is available for download on the author’s website, Ta-Enos.com; through the site’s contact form Book Clubs that are reading the memoir can also request free bookmarks or to have the author meet with them virtually. A handful of book signing events are on the calendar (listed below), and others are in the works.
For her part, Enos says she is just happy to finally have the book done. She said it took about eight years to finish the manuscript because she was writing it on the side while raising a family and building a rural nonprofit.
“I can’t tell you how many times I sat in my tree stand during hunting season thinking, next year I will have it done,” Enos said. “And then the next season I’d be back in that same stand, watching the woods wake up and listening to the squirrels race around, a little further along with the writing but still saying the same thing. It takes so much perseverance to write a book. This year I got in my hunting stand and I gotta say, I couldn’t stop smiling! However it is received, I’m proud that I stuck it out and got it done. I appreciate people giving it a chance.”
UPCOMING EVENTS WITH THE AUTHOR
June 4, 2025 – Author is part of a panel discussion organized by the PA Economy League and hosted by Lycoming College, “Main Street Meets the Mountains.” Books for sale on site by Otto Bookstore. Noon to 1:30 p.m., Williamsport, PA.
June 9, 2025 – Book launch event and signing at Allegheny Outfitters/Bent Run Brewing in Warren, PA, 6-9 p.m. Live music by Jody and Sara Aiello of The Company Townes band.
July 9-10, 2025 – Author will help kick off the Blue Ridge Rising Summit in Roanoke, Va. with a presentation about lessons learned through the PA Wilds effort.
July 19, 2025 – Author will do a book signing at Good Neighbor Bookstore, Lakewood, NY, 11-1 p.m.
Aug. 22, 2025 – Author will do a book signing at the Wild Sonshine Factory’s 2nd Annual Sunflower Festival from Noon to 4 p.m.
Sept. 27, 2025 – Author will do a book signing at the PA Wilds Conservation Shop in Marienville as part of the community’s Oktoberfest events.
Oct. 17, 2025 – Author will do a book signing and chat with fellow local author Sam MacDonald (Agony of an American Wilderness and Urban Hermit) about her experience as a first time author at Straub Brewery & Tap Room in St. Marys, PA as part of the Keystone Trails Association’s Hiking & Outdoor Weekend event, 4-5 p.m. at the Taproom.
Additional events are being scheduled throughout 2025-26. Check the author’s website for details.
