Whenever we enter a fictional forest - whether in a film, a novel or a fairy tale - we know we’re bound for a story of adventure, possibly of danger, magic or transformation. 

In the next few episodes of In the Weeds, we’ll be exploring works of fiction in which the forest plays a key role. Underlying our discussions will be some broader questions: why is the forest such an evocative place in our stories? What does it stand for? And what does the imagined forest tell us about our relationship with actual forests, past and present? 

In this brief introduction to the series, I tell you about some of the works we’ll be discussing - in case you would like to read along - and briefly discuss the two words at the heart of this inquiry, “forest” and “wood.”