It is Gearhart's first and most famous novel, and continues to be used in women's studies classes as a characteristic example of the separatist feminism movement from the 1970s.

Many of the chapters were first published as short stories, in fanzines, magazines, and lesbian periodicals including Ms., The Witch and the Chameleon, Quest: A Feminist Quarterly, and WomanSpirit[3] The Wanderground is set in the United States, in the future, although no date is given.

The main narrative that weaves throughout almost all of the stories, is caused by some kind of shift in the cosmic balance between the hill women and the cities.

As The Wanderground functions as a series of short stories in different parts of a world, the characters are listed here in association with the setting in which they appear.

[5] The ideas it presents of women living as one with the greater natural world, of being able to control one's fertility, and of the communication with other non-human living beings, as well as the poetic style of prose Gearhart writes in are of particular interest to readers coming from an environmental background.