Middle-grade novel

I am currently in my third year of developing a middle-grade novel narrated (mostly) from the perspective of a tree. The story aims to reorient young readers’ ideas and relationships around land and ecology through a blend of narrative adventure and science communication. Several chapters align with NGSS standards and can be used primary units of study by classroom teachers who want to fuse science and ELA. The manuscript, largely informed by studies in ecology and Indigenous education (e.g. Robin Wall Kimmer’s Braiding Sweetgrass), was the focus of my graduate project at the University of Utah’s Environmental Humanities graduate program where I explored the use of plants in children’s literature and lesson plans. I’m currrently rewriting it to better entertain and suit middle-grade readers. The crux of the novel is this: Trees are rad. Agents can inquire to see a manuscript

Other projects

I have written several picture book manuscripts that are available upon request. My career goal is to help children (and adults) pay attention to the wonders of plants in a way that builds stronger bonds and relationships to the natural world we share. My picture book projects, largely about plants, trees, and equitable ecology, reflect this goal.

Nature Stuff

“Fantastic Trees and Where to Find Them…” Salt Lake City Weekly, Sept. 21, 2022 (cover story)

“You’re Stuck Inside, but the Birds Aren’t…” NPR’s WAMU, April 2020

730DC’s Not a Swamp seasonal guides: Fall, Winter, Spring, Summer

730DC’s Alternative Cherry Blossom Guide

“The Stories Behind DC’s Christmas Trees 2019” DCist, December 2019

“Where to Find the Most Unusual Trees in D.C.” DCist, June 2019

Fiction

“The Space of Noise” Two Hawks Quarterly, Spring 2021

“Last Bloom” So It Goes: Literary Journal of the Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library, November 2019

“Apples” Country Roads Magazine  June 2014

“Green Numbers,” Flash Fiction Magazine, May 2018

“Crushing”  Verbsap.com  July 2006

Creative Non-fiction

“Whittling Wood” Torrey House Press – Voices Rising, November 2020

“The Lesson My First Crush Taught Me…” The Washington Post, February 14, 2019

“Pissing at the Women’s March” Medium, Jan. 2017

Find more personal essays of mine on Medium

Articles/Journalism/Food & Beer Writing

“&pizza Feeds Federal Workers During Shutdown” QSR Magazine, February 2019

Asian Beer on Tap, FSR Magazine, January 2019

“What to Expect from Red Bear Brewing…” DCist, October 2018

“Strange Brews in DC”, DCist, September 2018

“Mexican Murals in DC” DCist, August 2018

“As Craft Beer Booms, This DC Brewpub is Happy Staying Small” DCist, August 2017

“Will Bike for Beer”  Edible New Orleans, April 2015,  (pg. 21)

“Brown Derby Superstore” Mid-City Messenger  May 2014

“End of a Mirage” Where Y’at, January 2014

“Alternative Mardi Gras Krewes” Where Y’at, March 2014

Member of charter school reporting corps for The Lens from 2013-14

News contributor to NOLA Defender from 2013-14

Poetry

Lockdown drill – District Lines Volume IV, Winter 2017

A New Hammock – Peeking Cat Poetry Anthology 2018

Reviews

Music: Diana and Austra, Where Y’at, September 2013

Music: B.B. King, Where Y’at, January 2014

Notables

Taft-Nicholson Center Artist-in-Residence, Summer 2022

Outstanding Seminar Paper award, Fall 2020, University of Utah’s Environmental Humanities

Finalist in Iowa Review Award for Non-fiction in 2018 for “Lockdown”

Inner Loop Reading Series’ Writer of the Month for April 2017 and frequent contributor

Finalist in Ernest Hemingway Flash Fiction Prize in 2016 for Fiction Southeast for “Dig a Sheet-rag a Hole”

1st place in The Country Roads first-line fiction contest in 2014.  “Apples”

Finalist for NYC Midnight Flash Fiction Challenge 2014

Writer for Where Y’at, Nola Defender and The Lens from 2013-2014, FSR Magazine from 2018-19, DCist from 2017-20, 730dc from 2019-20