Writing
“We Regulate a Tiny Fraction of Forever Chemicals. There’s a Better Way.” Guest essay in The New York Times, April 2024
“Forever Chemicals, Religion, and Family Tragedy in Texas.” The Texas Observer, April 2024
Collaborative Environmental Storytelling
At the University of Illinois at Chicago, I was a researcher in the Freshwater Lab, an initiative directed by Dr. Rachel Havrelock that examines the social contexts of freshwater issues. Our team created Freshwater Stories, a dynamic digital narrative that engages visitors in the most urgent challenges to Lake Michigan. For the site, I wrote a story about a well-known fish and lesser known canal called “Where Do Fish Belong?”
In fall of 2021, we launched the The Backward River, a sequel to Freshwater Stories, that examines the racial segregation of the Chicago River and reimagines community life within the Lake Michigan watershed.
A few other publications
“Hook, Line, and Sinker” in Guernica
Summer 2022
“My mother told me a story when I was very young, one with an image so vivid that I can’t remember a time I couldn’t visualize it.”
“High and Mighty” in Pleiades
Spring 2021
“Dad liked to run as full dark thinned to morning in West Texas, cotton fields rolling out to the rim of a lilac horizon to touch the final seconds of night.”
“By Bread Alone” in High Desert Journal
Spring 2021
“Mom made bread to save Dad’s life. It didn’t sound as extreme at the time as it does now or as desperate.”
“What to Do with the Chicago River?” in Belt Magazine
Winter 2020 (co-authored with Rachel Havrelock)
“The Chicago River is not, strictly speaking, a river.”
“The Last Ballade” in Hyped on Melancholy
Fall 2019
“When love came back, my left-hand fumbled in B-major.”
“The Evangelist” in Gulf Coast
Fall 2019
“Then an evangelist rigged a pulpit of dirt floor and plywood of the only dead-end interstate in Texas.”
“Mostly the Same” & “Lesson from Claudia Emerson or Moth Body Count,” in Sonora Review
Fall 2017
“Most nights at the farmhouse were empty and I’d grown used to it, the way the wind raised a louder call.”
“Daughter Tongue” in Colorado Review
Summer 2017
“On Guam, snakes hung from power lines.”
“My Brother: A Brief Memoir in First Sentences” in McNeese Review
Spring 2016
“This is nothing new, how we remember things differently, yet everything we are lies in the distinction.”
“Flight: A List” in Pilgrimage
Spring 2015
“My father often promised to take me flying.”
“In the Time of Forty Letters” in Bellingham Review
Spring 2015
“At 3:00 a.m., a mockingbird outside my window rehearses each sound she heard from day: car alarm , cell phone, another bird. I’ve been told this is the best way to work through the flood of details that rush at night. If you are an insomniac, make a list. Speak into the dark. Find a spider to watch spin a web until the circle is small.”