SCHOLARSHIP OPP: Hands down, Travel Classics Media is the best networking conference for travel writing. Apply for this emerging-author aid—honoring my late brother-by-choice—by 7/1 and win a trip to the Quebec session October 13-16, 2025. Get in there, friends!!! travelclassics.com/scholarship

Photo bombus!!! 😹 #pollinators #bumblebees #bombus #lupine #blossomscrolling #nativeplants

Getting fired up for No Kings day! (And, yes, Snopes confirmed this story: bit.ly/3ZXOYA8)

Wrote a historical piece that defends funding for NPR and PBS. Whatever their problems, we cannot let Fox News become our default "public sphere." There needs to be alternatives, including imperfect yet aspirational ones.

✨NIPPED!✨ #Void #Blackcat #Blueskycats #Catsofbluesky

Before I go into today's dystopian nightmare, let's take a minute to bring down your blood pressure. Here is one of my favorite creatures, the #RedPanda. Enjoy. #nature #animals

Cinnamon Squirrel and her mate Big Red have become my coffee klatch. They take turns visiting each morning, sometimes companionably devouring nuts as I caffeinate. Eastern grays are an invasive species in Seattle, I know, but they've also invaded my heart, dangnabbit!

The blue-booty bees are back! Today I spotted the season's first wild mason bees in action (my cocoons are still slumbering in the fridge). Adorable!

My partner @dspaulding.bsky.social went on disability leave last summer & his company—surprise!—cancelled our insurance without warning on 2/28. Something we discovered today by accident. Fun! But, hey, the stress made our aloof girlcat Badger cuddle me: a new trick in her arsenal at age 12. Awww!

An incredible virtual conference starts tomorrow. @indiejournalists.bsky.social supports BIPOC writers, but welcomes allies too. Learn what 40+ top editors are looking for and how to thrive as a freelancer! Feb 27–28, 2025. $79. 10% discount: HONEY10. Recordings available. theiij.com.

📣 Trans journalists! We want to support your career development. We're offering $250-$500 stipends. Who's eligible? 👉 Any journalist who qualifies for TJA membership! We also have stipends specifically for: 👉 students 👉 early-career journos Apply now 👇 airtable.com/appL7bizZ6ai...

My travel writing course still has three seats open at @honeybadgerwriters.bsky.social. The asynchronous class starts today, 2/25 (open enrollment till day 10). Join us for industry insights and weekly developmental line-edits from expert instructors! www.writelikeahoneybadger.com/classes/trav...

Cheerful round-up of bad news for Tusk/Mump.

Scholarship opp: @honeybadgerwriters.bsky.social is accepting applications from journos and emerging writers from backgrounds underrepresented in the #media. Deadline: midnight on 2/19 for my six-week online #travelwriting class starting 2/25. www.writelikeahoneybadger.com/scholarships

Today, I had a phone interview for a medical article sooooo early that this night owl slept in her clothes. Feeling fierce now! But not so fresh... 😹

The @niemanlab.org just published this piece on our new paywalls study. @speppered.bsky.social does a great job presenting the findings comprehensively, accurately, and with stylistic flair. Thanks Sophie! www.niemanlab.org/2025/02/less... Full paper: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

How to purge Copilot's intrusive, unethical, resource-guzzling trash for anyone else suffering! (Only works for Word & Powerpoint so far...😿) I canceled my subscription & bought Office from Digital Licensing instead for $25! Especially nice since Microsoft is jacking rates 30% on renewal now...

Registration opened for the fall @travelclassics.bsky.social conference. Interested? Apply immediately, as it usually sells out in a day or two. Another avenue: a scholarship honoring my late brother-by-choice, which includes the fee, accommodation & $350 towards airfare. bit.ly/travelclassics

It's teaching time again! Writers, learn how to perfect your pitches to get the work you want this year!

How fun that our Jeep achieved Peak Northwest by spouting baby blue mini-mushrooms, right as my soul sister Stephanie Oswald rocked up in Seattle! (Pic of a previous rainy hangout together, back when Kalaloch Lodge allowed beach bonfires.)

Last call for a nifty free webinar on December 5, starting at 7am PST/10am EST. Come talk #travelwriting with @charukesi.bsky.social, @jenrosesmith.bsky.social, Meera Dattani and myself! #writingtips #narrativenonfiction #journalism #pitching bit.ly/travelmediaw...

#Writingtip 1.6: Avoid an attack of the unnecessary initial-caps when writing about food. In most style guides, menu items don't count as proper names, so you can lower-cap 'em. Otherwise it can go a bit A.A. Milne with The Portentous Pooh-Bear-style Capitalizations. #NarrativeNonfiction #Journalism

Yep, here's me, exploiting my late kitty to teach #writing over @honeybadgerwriters.bsky.social! (And, yes, he really would plunder unattended salads. Weird little dude... But he loved me and @dspaulding.bsky.social with the force of a thousand suns.) #journalism #narrativenonfiction #writingtips

A #journalism superpower unmasked! 😹

Here's my fave #stetpet shot: our tortoiseshell Badger rolling around on my desk as a spicy baby. Though I also like this snap of Bailey stealing my home office's comfy chair. (STET = proofreading mark for "let it stand," as in "ignore a suggested change.") #journalism @dspaulding.bsky.social

#Writingtip 1.4: Inclusive person-first language is steadily on the rise now and emphasizes humanity over conditions, whether those are having a disability, an addiction, a mental illness, etc. #journalism #narrativenonfiction #writing

I'm gearing up for a free #travelwriting webinar with superstars Meera Dattani and @jenrosesmith.bsky.social. Join me in getting heavily caffeinated and talking shop on December 5, 10am EST/7am PST! Grab a ticket here: bit.ly/travelmediaw... #journalism #narrativenonfiction #writingtips #travel

#Writingtip 1.3: As Chip Scanlan says, a story should represent the tip of an iceberg: most of the material should remain submerged in your notebook. Check out his classic advice column pubbed @poynterinstitute.bsky.social! #journalism #narrativenonfiction www.poynter.org/reporting-ed...

#Writing tip 1.2: Strong verbs create action, save space and reveal the players. Use passives VERY sparingly for rhetorical effect or to emphasize oppression or victimization. Choose that voice only for its meaning or music! #journalism #writingtips #creativenonfiction

Writing tip 1.1: As George Orwell said, never use passive verbs where you can use active ones (unless you need to convey victimization or oppression, or are restricted by other syntactical elements).
#journalism #writing #writingtips

I'm dishing up insights from 21 years of teaching #writing, #journalism and #creativenonfiction over @honeybadgerwriters.bsky.social, the online school I founded.

“Bluesky is an echo chamber!” Our Reply: Echo chamber? Nah, we prefer to call it surround sound for facts.

I started a feed of #journalism and creative non-fiction resources. #journalists #writers #reporters #creativenonfiction #CNF #literarynonfiction #narrative #essays #articles

Rough week. So let me fill your @bsky.app feeds with one of my favorite data visualizations... Enjoy! 🙂 Seasonal migration patterns of birds varying with air temperature using community science observations (eBird). Animation created by: sos.noaa.gov/catalog/data...

Got haircut masked > Got Covid anyway > Immune-compromised partner sleeping in unplumbed outbuilding gets food poisoning (tiny home problems!) > Got adept at hosing vom off deck > Got five journalism deadlines met somehow > Got *super* relieved this stupid week is over

The Trump campaign knew that men were his ticket back to power, and it targeted them—pointedly young men, and men of color—with a sophisticated campaign of grievance and disinformation. And in that, they were massively aided by the manosphere and its billionaire mascot: Elon Musk.

Also, part of the reason we did bought InfoWars is because people on Bluesky told us it would be funny to buy InfoWars. And those people were right. This is the funniest thing that has ever happened.

Paws up, my fellow travelers! (H/t to @rossanawyatt.bsky.social for organizing!)

An intro, as the X-odus continues! I'm a Seattle writer & photographer focusing on travel, medicine & the environment. My work appears in Afar, BBC Travel, Hidden Compass, Sierra, National Geographic & The New York Times. Founder & instructor at www.writelikeahoneybadger.com www.amandacastleman.com

Get your travel writing groove on with Write Like A Honey Badger's six-week online course. I'm teaching with the fabulous Jessica Poitevien and Leslie Hsu Oh again — we give weekly developmental edits, so students accelerate quickly. Our next session starts 3/14 with enrollment open until day 10!

Kicking off the new year with salt water and sunshine. Happy 2024!

We are in the midst of a big COVID surge, caused by a new variant. This is a helpful chart on holiday COVID risk put together by Dr. Michael Hoerger, based on current COVID wastewater levels & modeling. For a Christmas gathering of 10 people, there's a 30% chance at least one person is infectious.

As a Seattleite, I tend to blast through Olympia, WA, like "make a hole, I'm almost home!" But a magazine assignment convinced me to slow down and explore the area, from grunge nostalgia at Capitol Theater to Cajun-PNW fusion fare at Chicory and The Tenino Stone Carvers' renaissance. Lesson learned!

Seattle-area folks, if anyone needs a headshot update, the photographer who updated mine — Tara Gimmer — is offering a $149, 20-minute deal on January 20th. She's lovely... and excellent at settling down squirmy, lens-shy creatives! taragimmer.com/seattle-head...

Early enrollment time for my favorite virtual conference: The Institute for Independent Journalists'! The code "BADGER10" takes the price to US$44 for two days of amazing speakers, 2/29—3/1. Hope to "see" some of you there! (The cost rises after 12/22, but the code still works.) theiij.com