Cowgirls & Pirates was inspired by stories. One was John Muir's, a farm boy who arrived in California in the late 1800s. If he were around today, we'd affectionately call him a Dirt Bag, the kind of scruffy, highly intelligent, mildly maladjusted young man you meet in Joshua Tree or Missoula.

Muir found his life's work in California's Yosemite Valley. "I have run wild," Muir wrote. "As long as I live, I’ll hear waterfalls and birds and winds sing. I'll interpret the rocks, learn the language of flood, storm, and the avalanche. I'll acquaint myself with the glaciers and wild gardens, and get as near the heart of the world as I can.”

Another inspiration? Jackson Looseyia, a Maasai warrior who learned to track animals from his father, a famous hunter - and poacher recruited by conservationists to save animals instead of hunt them. Looseyia bridges the old and new, reminding us, as Muir did, that we are not separate from nature but connected to it in ways that are both quotidian and profound.