Back from rafting the Green River. Here's our last morning - sometimes nature is ridiculously, wonderfully, amazingly cliche.

Still time to sign up for a #writing workshop on the Green River with me and the fantastic Holiday River folks! We'll take off on June 22 - don't you want to be floating a beautiful river next week?? www.bikeraft.com/specialty-ri...

Advice to writers from the 1920s. It has aged rather well. "Don't hurry the book because no one will publish anything now..." #amwriting #authors

Health insurance companies: Let's talk about wellness! Me: Okay, my eyes have been -- 👀 Them: Eyes don't count. Me: Oh, well, I could use a dentist --🫤 Them: Teeth don't count. Me: Really? I'm gonna need a therapist. Them: Brains def don't count. 🧠

A bit of country bliss.

Prickly poppies abloom in the White Sage burn scar north of the Grand Canyon.

For your Sunday reading, #author Benjamin Schneider talks about the value of truly public spaces, the concept of "15 minute malls" and flying cars. Take a deep dive into the future of American urban centers. @terrainorg.bsky.social www.terrain.org/2026/intervi...

Okay, mostly being a writer does not look like this. But some days it does. 💙 #amwriting

Goodness, I almost forgot it's my book's 3-year anniversary! To celebrate, here's a throwback photo to my publicity manager, who gets credit for keeping my sanity mostly intact. 🐱💙📚

Goodreads is running a giveaway for my upcoming book LOST IN CURIOSITY: Field Notes from Scientists' Adventures into the Unknown! You can enter to win a free print copy www.goodreads.com/book/show/22...

The new issue of About Place includes my brief essay "Landslide." It's about loss, interconnected ecological and human health, and the ocean. Give it a read. #writing #climatechange #ecology aboutplacejournal.org/issues/the-g...

Morning on the Colorado River above Lees Ferry. Had a lovely float before the crazy wind set in.

Science writer @melissasevigny.bsky.social does a deep dive on last summer's Dragon Bravo Fire on the north rim of Grand Canyon National Park: www.grandcanyontrust.org/blog/after-t...

Grand Canyon sunrise. Never a bad thing when this is your office for the day.

Mother's Day feels like the right time to share this poem, published in the latest issue of Grist journal. #poetry #amwriting

Is anyone in #scicomm reporting on the FDA and thyroid medication? This needs a close eye. Insurance is now basically forcing everyone to take levothyroxine, a generic that DOES NOT ALLEVIATE SYMPTOMS for most people who take it. It took me years to find a thyroid med that worked; fewer options now.

New book alert! #scicomm #science #womeninSTEM #books

This little sprig is a third generation Apollo Moon Tree, set to be planted at Lowell Observatory. Space + botany, the best combo! 🌑🌱

Important reporting in @sierramagazine.bsky.social by @morgansjogren.bsky.social on stalled Colorado River negotiations: "the only common ground between the states is disapproval for all alternatives put forward. " #water #scicomm www.sierraclub.org/sierra/can-c...

In case you need to read something cute and cheerful today: learn all about splooting! #scicomm www.knau.org/earth-notes/...

Chatted with the amazing whitewater river runner/writer Becca Lawton about.... let's see, rivers, deserts, #womeninSTEM, #books, #poetry, the impact of a mentor, and other things. Give it a listen! beccalawton.substack.com/p/melissa-l-...

Ta da!

High elevation gluten free sourdough baking today. Wish me luck!

Today's Earth Notes: what to do if you get stuck in quicksand. (No, you won't sink in all the way like in the movies). www.knau.org/earth-notes/...

Interesting @newyorker.com piece. I think a lot about the joys of physical media; on VCR nights w/ niblings, they squabble over who gets to push the cassette in. There's beauty in the tactile. Also, it starts and stops: a mindfulness not found in endless streaming. www.newyorker.com/culture/essa...

My cat is such a weirdo. ❤️

Cool piece in @lithub.com.web.brid.gy by @chanda.blacksky.app about the perils of metaphor in #scicomm. I think about this a lot! Figurative language has such power to captivate and make the strange more understandable...but can also lead us astray. #science lithub.com/where-physic...

My latest in AZ Highways, the mysterious story of the Continental Divide marker in Bisbee which is 100+ miles off from the real divide

Today's adventure afield: baby endangered orchids returning to the wild. Story to come! #scicomm #botany

Sonoran Desert in the spring, seen through the windows of the old stone house on the David Yetman Trail.

This thread! I work with archival materials that aren't available online, and it is slow and painstaking and totally inefficient, and guess what? I love it, and I find humor and heart and surprise and awe in my work. AI can't do that. It shouldn't even try.

Bought a used book today and found a package of wildflower seeds tucked inside .... From 1998. Think any of them will still sprout? #books #nature

Hummers are heading back our way! Here's some tips on filling your feeders. 🪶 www.knau.org/earth-notes/...

update: not a scam. It's a tariff. Apparently this is happening a lot, where the seller puts the tariff bill on the buyer long after the fact. $15 tariff on a $25 item... 🤷‍♀️

Flagstaff friends, I'm teaching a (free!) nature writing workshop Tuesday at Willow Bend Environmental Center at 5pm. Also, Thin Air magazine has other workshops coming up on comics and the science of storytelling, so keep an eye out! #writing

Starting in 10 minutes! Join me. 👇

Early cherry bloom plus smoky skies (Rx burn) making things both beautiful and apocalyptic today.

Cool project run by a friend of mine to save Liberty Hyde Bailey's home/herbarium and turn it into an #ecology #scicomm center. (Look him up - he was one of America's earliest environmental educators!) The folks involved in this do good work; if you can donate, please do. www.bailey-center.org

I keep getting letters from FedEx saying I owe shipping costs on an item I did not order or receive. Is this just a mistake, or anyone know if it's a weird kind of scam?

Interesting historical fact: there was research on predator/prey relationships way back in the '30s by the Muries (who concluded ecosystems do need predators). Curious to know the (undisclosed) design of this study; any controls; random replicated plots? Probably not. 🧪 www.hcn.org/articles/uta...

If you haven't had a chance to hear me talk about my botany/adventure book BRAVE THE WILD RIVER, I'm giving a virtual talk Thursday night for Vermont River Conservancy - open to the public! #authors 👩‍🔬#scicomm 🧪 vermontriverconservancy.org/news/brave-t...

Finally had the courage to take a look at the White Sage fire scar north of the Grand Canyon. Devastating to see a familiar landscape so radically changed. #wildfire #grandcanyon

For more about this book, here's an interview with the author in @highcountrynews.org. I love the parting question: what does it mean to embrace the ephemeral? #lakes #ecology #womeninstem www.hcn.org/issues/58-3/...

Nice to see The Feather Wars on bookshelves. I had fun blurbing this one. It's an intriguing history of the early days of the #conservation movement for protecting birds and full of oddball characters. #books #birds

A little more peace and quiet... Paria Riffle on the Colorado River.

Desert canyons are the most healing spaces I know.

For #WomensHistoryMonth, resurrecting this story from @atavist.com, which grew into my book BRAVE THE WILD RIVER. (Your perennial reminder: women's history IS history!) #womeninstem magazine.atavist.com/2019/the-wil...

"This violent reaction was not the way science was supposed to be functioning" - a fascinating story about a fight between (older, male) scientists w/ a woman over dinosaur color. I wish the author had called out the sexism more overtly; still a good read.👩‍🔬#scicomm nautil.us/when-scienti...

In the mail today, this brave, haunting, powerful book from @wwnorton.com. If you're looking for an elegantly written memoir mixed with natural history, this one's for you. 💙📚 #scicomm #nonfiction

The 1930s were a heyday of #nationalpark proposals, but the vast majority of them didn't make the grade. A niche group of scholars investigate why. Here's my story about beautiful places in #Arizona that never became parks. www.arizonahighways.com/article/land...