Happy New Year! Start off your reading list with this profile of a Grand Canyon mule wrangler - my words accompanied by gorgeous photography of John Burcham. www.arizonahighways.com/article/ridi...

Such a treat to receive today my contributor's copy of @orionmagazine.bsky.social with my story on the Santa Cruz Sand Trout. Look for that, and other stories if cryptids, in the winter issue!

(One day I will stop writing about river trips.... BUT IT IS NOT THIS DAY!)

My latest in @protectparks.bsky.social's magazine, about a trip down Cataract Canyon to see how drought has drained a reservoir... and revived a river. www.npca.org/articles/112...

I wrote a nonet today (nine line poem with descending syllables). Someone here on Bluesky introduced me to the form and I'm forgetting who, so reintroduce yourself if that's you.

Happy solstice. May the days grow brighter as we turn toward the light.

Chased down the NEVILLS EXPEDITION '38 inscription on the Green River earlier this year - though it's nearly obliterated by vandalism. (Yes, I suppose the original inscription was also vandalism... but at a time when there was comparatively little access to this area.) 📷 @morgansjogren.bsky.social

A sighting in the wild... never ceases to bring me joy. 😍

New today in @terrainorg.bsky.social, an interview with the amazing ecopoet Elizabeth Bradfield. "If we truly open ourselves, a walk around the block at home can become a mystery." 🌎💙📚 www.terrain.org/2025/intervi...

What a fantastic gift list for fans of the Grand Canyon and outdoor adventure. Thanks @grandcanyontrust.bsky.social #books #writing 🎁

A poem for your Friday evening, "Because we can't carry the light / of a million fallen stars..." I hope wherever you are, you can see some constellations. www.terrain.org/2025/poetry/...

Catching up on local work and loving this story by @melissasevigny.bsky.social for Arizona Highways Mag about a 1900s birder who "stood out because she was standing very still." Nothing like women who love the wild west and aren't afraid to be weird about it. www.arizonahighways.com/article/stan...

Books are the best holiday gifts! Portable, re-giftable, easy to wrap. 🎁If anyone has a botany, National Parks, or #womeninSTEM fan in their life, I'm happy to personalize copies of my book. Order online through Bright Side Bookshop in Flagstaff and say you want it signed. 🥰 brightsidebookshop.com

Nonfiction #writers: The Ellen Meloy Grant is an amazing opportunity for $5,000 to support a desert-focused project. You also join a really cool & supportive community of people. 🌵 ellenmeloy.com/apply

New in @terrainorg.bsky.social, a conversation about western rivers by three writers who know what it's like to raft, explore, study, and love them. @rosemcmackin.bsky.social www.terrain.org/2025/intervi...

Pumpkin display update.

So...got to the plant store right when they were hauling all the pumpkins to be composted. This happened.

Escalating conflict between Gandalf and the Vine for the sunniest spot in the house.

My laptop is melting down, but I'm afraid to buy a new one because it will probably be chock-full of AI systems that I do not want and cannot remove. Advice? Open to a desktop, too.

Nature's first green is gold, Her hardest hue to hold (Robert Frost)

Replying to snail mail fan letters today... International ones no less, from Canada and the UK. These are the moments that make writing a book SO lovely. 🥰

OMG just opened up a page of research notes and it looks like this. Help! What's happening?!? #writing

Carrot harvest time!

Loved this excerpt of Gary Ferguson's THE TWILIGHT FOREST in @orionmagazine.bsky.social. Ponderosas offer, he writes, "a feeling of being sheltered—a sense that even when the world is dark there are places you can go to feel some measure of belonging." orionmagazine.org/article/twil...

Official photos from the Murrow Awards last Monday! Fun to discover a stealth photo of me by the paparazzi. 📷 credit BP Miller, who is on Insta under @bpmiller_official

Celebrating national Murrow Award with my editor @ryanheinsius.bsky.social in NYC!

Photos from yesterday's unveiling of an Indigenous (Navajo/Hopi) mural at Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff. Beautiful artwork by Nanibah Chacon and Gerald Dawavendewa celebrating Indigenous ways of knowing the night sky. 🧪🔭

Someone asked me recently what we do about #science stories that are lost or destroyed or buried. I was lucky to have diaries to reconstruct this story; what if we don't? I said art - fiction, plays, poems - have a lot of power to take fragments and show how things might have been, or could be.

TONIGHT! Come join me! #WomeninSTEM

Check out this beautiful interview in @terrainorg.bsky.social with #author Elspeth Hay about #farming, #food, and the future: "we need a new economic system to regenerate life instead of gambling with it." www.terrain.org/2025/intervi...

For those of you in Flagstaff, I'm really excited about this #womeninstem event a week from today -- which will include a portion of my book adapted into a play (!) by the Flagstaff Shakespeare Festival. I mean, how cool is that?!? 👩‍🔬 It's free! It's #science and #art! Come join us!

Gandalf and the Vine in a moment if harmony.

Hello, canyon. I've missed you!

In other exciting news: the blackberries are ripe!

My review of Rob Dunn's new book THE CALL OF THE HONEYGUIDE, which explores relationships known as "mutualisms" between human and nonhuman species - from cats to yeasts to birds to whales. It joins a growing literature that focuses on nature's cooperative side. 🌎💙📚🧪 www.nytimes.com/2025/09/01/b...

Thanks for sharing! My publisher is running an e-book promotion right now, so you can get it for $2.99 (or apparently a bit less!) anywhere you normally buy books. 💙📚👩‍🔬Happy reading!

Taking a pause from social media for a while. Here's a zen moment at a beaver dam in the meanwhile.

For your weekend reading, this beautiful interview with artist and chef Anne Flash about the shift in her work from pastoral beachscapes into what she calls "full tilt into the storm and imbalance." 🌎 #art #climatechange @terrainorg.bsky.social www.terrain.org/2025/intervi...

Attempting to show what a beautiful job Arizona Highways did on the layout of my article about Florence Merriam Bailey, but the cat has other ideas.

I went looking for a photo of the Grand Canyon Lodge from my last visit, but apparently I didn't take one. Of course it wouldn't have occurred to me I'd never have another chance. This is the picture I snapped from the veranda at sunset. 💔

I'm thrilled to have my first-ever piece in Arizona's Highway's August issue, about a Grand Canyon ornithologist...🪶👩‍🔬🌎🧪 though the timing is bittersweet, given the ongoing tragedy of the North Rim fires. www.arizonahighways.com/article/stan...

This fellow has been staking out my feeder all week. Rufous, I think? Why does he look totally different in flight v. standing still? (Yard Bird #33!) 🪶

Losing the North Rim Grand Canyon Lodge and visitor center is devastating. Hoping for safety for all the communities and firefighters there. ❤️‍🩹

The intrepid cherry tree has produced 11 cherries. 1 for me, 10 for the birds.

Oooh... here's a sneak peek at Sarah Boon's new book MELTDOWN in @literaryhub.bsky.social, all about the #womeninSTEM who inspired her to study glaciers, like Victorian-era Mary Vaux, who spoke of exploring as the "wild spirit that enters the blood." 🧪🌎👩‍🔬

A refreshing breakthrough on #ColoradoRiver negotiations: let's manage the river based on the actual water it has, not what was legally promised 100 years ago. (The fact that this idea is simultaneously "innovative" and...obvious...says a lot about western water policy) www.upr.org/mountain-wes...

This reminds me to ask - are there hiking / backpacking / river rafting group around here?

Oh - do people listen to books while hiking?! I've never done that. So cool to have BRAVE THE WILD RIVER (read by Elizabeth Wiley) appear on this great list, alongside Hitchhiker's Guide (!), Demon Copperfield, and 2 books by Jules Verne. 💙📚 thetrek.co/the-best-aud...

For years whenever I interviewed an astronomer they inevitably said, "Well, just wait for Vera Rubin...." First images finally here! I especially like the asteroid swarm video. 🤯🔭 #stem #scicomm rubinobservatory.org