This week's Top 5 #longreads: • ICE fighter, @spiegel.de • Tectonic researcher, @highcountrynews.org • Prairie preserver, @noemamag.com • Regal grandmother, Southlands (@boyceupholt.bsky.social) • Wild timekeeper, @emergencemagazine.bsky.social longreads.com/2026/01/16/t...

This week Jesse talks to Southlands founder and editor @boyceupholt.bsky.social about Southerners' relationship to our natural surroundings — and about a new book Upholt has also written, about the history and destiny of the Mississippi River. theprogressivesouth.org/headlights-e...

Love seeing @anyagroner.bsky.social's feature for Southlands on this list. (Ugh, do we need a Southlands bluesky account?)

Love seeing these land in mailboxes!

With Southlands Issue No. 01 getting set to ship next week -- it's time to start thinking about the next issue! See pitch guidelines here: docs.google.com/document/d/1...

"Disconnected from the grid after Hurricane Ida, New Orleans went without power for 10 days. That dark week marked the beginning of a social movement that has become a political cause." @boyceupholt.bsky.social spoke w/ New Orleanians fed up with unaccountable energy providers and ready for change.

When Places Journal asked if I wanted to write about "climate urbanism" in New Orleans, I decided to tackle what felt like the most pressing problem: our rickety old electrical grid. The reporting was, by turns, frustrating, terrifying, and empowering. placesjournal.org/article/powe...

Y’all! I’m nervous about it, but I’m gonna be live on a PBS News Hour “Tipping Point” special about the Mississippi River on Wednesday night. Tune in here at 6pm CST, July 16: www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLoq...

Ten-ish years ago, I contemplated the academic path, and a PhD in environmental history. I decided that journalism might be more lucrative and (yikes) jury is still out. But it's a field that means a lot to me, so I'm so honored by this review!

This is big news that I wish I had the capacity to drill into much further www.nola.com/news/environ...

Someone commission this, please

I love a good bridge but also -- these last remaining forests matter so much... www.tclf.org/environmenta...

Seeking artists and illustrators who love to spend time outdoors in the South. If you know anyone who fits that bill, please link me to their portfolio 🙏

Get your eyes on the Mississippi, y'all. We haven't seen anything like this since I started writing the book in 2020. Or more than that: my friend John Ruskey is telling me in his 30 years on the river he's never seen it come up so fast.

Thanks, NASA, we're doing great down here... earthobservatory.nasa.gov/topic/natura...

Fuck yeah, goose www.theguardian.com/environment/...

you’re fired. wait you’re rehired. email us a list of things you’ve done today wait forget it you’re fired again. come back your job was important. you’re fired. or hired. come in to the office. wait the office has no computers go home. we are the department of government efficiency.

Imagine DOGE opens your mail and finds your household electric bill. To eliminate this cost, they burn your house down without warning. Then they total up the bills that, as a homeless person, you will never again pay. On its website, DOGE boasts about the money it has saved you.

One more way to gut public lands: ensure the remaining staff members don’t even have an office to work from. www.arkansasonline.com/news/2025/ma...

Noting this data is far from complete, but Southern parks seem particularly hard hit. Three Southern parks tied for most lost jobs. Everglades National Park: 15 jobs cut Great Smoky Mountains National Park: 12 Mammoth Cave National Park: 15 Shenandoah National Park: 15

If anyone has posts or details from protests in the South’s national parks, please send them my way.

For a few projects, I'm looking for businesses that either (1) have an important post-Katrina recovery story or (2) are in the outdoors industry and are fighting now to recover from Helene. For #1, I'm interested in restaurants for sure but also other kinds of businesses, too. Thanks for any leads!

What books have or will come out in 2024 that might be of particular interest to Southern naturalists and outdoorsmen and -women?

Reading list as of late: Dylan’s taste in music, Native sovereignty and collective liberation, my own German roots, and making/unmaking the mighty Mississippi by @boyceupholt.bsky.social. #books

I have solved Bird Flu. Give the chickens ivermectin. Have the chickens practice Earthing. The problem with their immune systems is they are not touching the soil enough. Coffee enemas for all chickens. Also we must stop reading them Ibram X. Kendi. Eggs will be back and most importantly not gay.

I've never been but I love to see this and will have to go soon. Maybe after I next pick up some shrimp at the Westwego Lot. www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/...

You know what turns out to be really fun? Commissioning the writers and photographers you love to do cool projects.

Personally, I consider this one a bummer. "I think it just opens up a lot of opportunities for industries and businesses to come along the river and bring really an unprecedented amount of wealth to this region," said St. Charles Parish President Matthew Jewell. www.wdsu.com/article/rive...

What you quickly learn when you open yourself up to pitches: there is a very clear dividing line between the aspirants and the professionals.

One day, pretty sure I already got an AI pitch. A fully written AI story, in fact!

Want to go visit the national parks this year? Sorry. The reservation system is shut down, EMT personnel are gone, so don't get hurt or lost. No one can clean the bathrooms or cabins, so they'll be closed. Rangers are fired. www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/arti...

I'm now accepting pitches for the debut issue of SOUTHLANDS. Check out the guidelines below and be in touch! docs.google.com/document/d/1...

Deeply relieving to discover how filled with anxiety some of the all-time-greats were when it comes to dealing with editors www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

With Outside magazine all but over, I wanted to compile a list of longform stories set in the South. Sadly, again and again, I’m finding this screen. What a loss.

Good book mail

I guess this kid from the Connecticut suburbs is now, officially, a Southerner? Seriously, though -- as a poor judge of my own work, as someone who moved to Mississippi dreaming of being a writer but not being sure how to do so -- this means so much to me. olemiss.edu/news/2025/2/...

Love the idea of this "reading retreat" and honored that The Great River is featured! www.astate.edu/news/lakepor...

3) in May I'm going to be a part of a very cool program gathering writers to discuss the future of this work in this region. It's open to 100 writers, by invitation and application, with no cost to any attendees. Go apply now!

2) Just yesterday my interview with the 10 Across project was released. It's sort of ALSO about finding hope amid ruins...

Been staying way from social media so I've been remissing in posting some recent podcasts. BUT 1) just before the new year, I appeared on Mitzi Rapkin's great First Draft to talk about finding hope in dark times. The interview was a while back but certainly seems relevant still!

I'm for "The Sea of Storms" 🤘 www.texasmonthly.com/being-texan/...

Looking for a printing company somewhere within a couple hours of New Orleans -- or at the very least in the South -- that can print 2,000 copies of a full-color magazine, hopefully with some eye toward sustainability. Happy for any recommendations!

"I’m just a small being, here for a small moment, surrounded by so much life, to be followed by so much life to come." Love this. What's your favourite #tree? Bonus if you have pics

I've been mentioning this book in talks this summer and fall, part of the new mode of thinking rivers. Glad to see it ticking ever closer to available!

(What a job I have, to get to have and write about favorite trees…)

delighted to get to write, for Garden & Gun, about my favorite tree in the world

Louisiana campground rules

Yes. www.nytimes.com/2025/01/04/o...

Slowly, it creeps closer. www.theguardian.com/world/2024/d...

Stopping over in Asheville for a few days for NYE. Any recommendations for the area for this moment?