Flagstaff friends, don't miss this film screening on Saturday of WHAT THE RIVER KNOWS, a beautiful tribute to Glen Canyon. See you there! #coloradoriver

Finally set up my new #writing space, and it's been christened with a tiny, exquisite little spiderweb. An art-making companion, hooray! 🕸️

I really enjoyed interviewing Sarah Boon, author of MELTDOWN, about glaciers, #womeninstem, #mentalhealth. As she says, it's time to "open up the silence" about mental health in academia. Give it a read. @terrainorg.bsky.social @snowhydro.bsky.social

Plant lovers, don't miss the bit about @doctorzedd.bsky.social's next book! #books #writing #botany #womeninstem 👇👇👇

Bought a new computer and spent the past week disabling AI features. Here's what I've figured out so far. I am not a tech person, so feel free to add -- and I'd love to see a guide for the #WritingCommunity all in one place! Here goes: 1/

So glad sometime finally told this story. I learned about pioneer cemeteries holding the last remnants of tallgrass prairie when I lived in Iowa. Christian Elliott in @noemamag.com does justice to a complex story about loss, restoration, and a clash between culture and nature. #scicomm #Writing

Making a living as a writer is a privilege; it's also really hard. Yet art & storytelling are the soul of being human. Thanks to all those working to bring the unacceptable theft behind AI technology into the light.

A really thoughtful reflection on the use of the phrase "time immemorial" when speaking about Indigenous presence in North America. Give it a read.

Ebook readers -- my book BRAVE THE WILD RIVER is on a promotional sale right now, just $2.99! Anywhere you buy ebooks. Happy reading! #books #womeninstem

New Mexicans - do you have a name for that little extra square that sticks down on the southwestern corner? Asking for a friend. (Okay it's me, I need to know).

For #writers and writing-curious folks on here, how about a peek behind the curtain on this story? What does it take to bring a #scicomm feature like this one together? Short answer: time, and lots of people. Long answer: keep reading... 1/5

What a pleasure it was to write the epic story of plate tectonics - and the woman who brought the theory from the ocean to the land - with the fabulous editors at @highcountrynews.org. Give a read! #womeninstem #science #geology #scicomm

For your Sunday reading, proud to have this piece in @orionmagazine.bsky.social about the legendary Sand Trout. (Photo is a real life horned lizard, not a mythical creature). More stories about cryptids in their winter issue. orionmagazine.org/article/the-...

Ringing in the New Year the only possible way... With a LOTR marathon and a Hobbit feast.

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...