A little about myself...
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Environmental Attorney | Award-Winning Freelance Journalist & Documentarian
I was born in Kansas, grew up in Kentucky, went to graduate school in New England, and now live in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley where I am an attorney and a freelance writer of articles and essays dealing with the natural world, history, culture, law and policy. As an lawyer I've worked extensively with state and federal governments as well as with various nonprofit groups on environmental issues dealing with land preservation, conservation easements, endangered species, clean air and water, American Indian law, conservation finance, and wetlands mitigation.
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Documentary filmmaking is another passion of mine. I enjoyed a month with Maine Media Workshops in the summer of 2011 where I wrote, produced, shot, edited and scored a short documentary concerning the reintroduction of declining seabirds to the Gulf of Maine, an opportunity funded in part through a Madson Fellowship awarded by the Outdoor Writers Association of America. In 2018 I directed a crew of a dozen volunteers in making a short film to benefit a local dog rescue group.
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As a wholly self-taught freelancer, I have earned a reputation for explicating complex legal, policy and scientific matters in illuminating and compelling prose. My areas of journalistic proficiency includes endangered species, habitat preservation and connection, environmental law and policy issues, water quality, wildlife crime, public lands management, riparian restoration, climate change effects on wildlife, wetlands mitigation, conservation easements, traditional cultures, and rural living. I’m particularly interested in journalistic projects that involve some of the weightiest topics of our time: rewilding, the African poaching crisis, the Anthropocene and the Sixth Extinction. I’ve worked with numerous conservation NGOs and federal environmental agencies and am a skilled and eager naturalist.
I try to spend a maximum amount of my time outdoors - hiking, canoeing, birding, camping - though in point of fact most of my days are spent in the salt mines of legal work or freelancing: pitching, researching and writing. I also enjoy literature, cinema, music, art, and dogs. Especially rescued pit bulls 🐶
I try to spend a maximum amount of my time outdoors - hiking, canoeing, birding, camping - though in point of fact most of my days are spent in the salt mines of legal work or freelancing: pitching, researching and writing. I also enjoy literature, cinema, music, art, and dogs. Especially rescued pit bulls 🐶
RESUME
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JOURNALISTIC EXPERTISE
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Selected Publications
Ensia, Vice, Yale Environment360, Aeon, Bay Journal, Sierra, Mongabay, MIT News, Discover, Humanities, The Revelator, Cosmos, Bird Watcher’s Digest, International Journal of Wilderness, Rawhead, Blue Ridge Outdoors, FuturePerfect, The Southern Quarterly, Grit, The Utne Reader, African Wildlife News, Earth Island Journal, Virginia Wildlife, Wildlife in North Carolina, History Today, Blue Ridge Digest, Virginia Sportsman, Africa Geographic, Virginia Business, Quest: The Science of Sustainability.
Professional Recognitions
- 2023 Patagonia Tools for Grassroots Activists Institute, Lake Tahoe
- 2018 Institute for Journalism and Natural Resources Post-SEJ Conference Tour of Great Lakes
- 2018 Travel Fellowship for Society of Environmental Journalists Annual Conference
- 2018 St. Lawrence River Institute, Institute for Journalism and Natural Resources
- 2018 Excellence in Craft Awards, First and Second Place, Virginia Outdoor Writers Association
- 2017 Most Read Article on Mongabay, “Namibia’s Low Cost, Sustainable Solution to Seabird Bycatch”
- 2017 Speaker’s Fellowship for the World Conference of Science Journalism, Council for the Advancement of Science Writing
- 2017 Journalism Fellow, Society of Wetland Scientists
- 2017 Freelance Fellowship for Workshop: “Searching for Truth in the Age of Alternative Facts,” Society of Environmental Journalists
- 2017 Certificate of Excellence in Craft for Conservation Writing, Virginia Outdoor Writers Association and Appalachian Mountain Advocates
- 2015 McCormick Specialized Reporting Institute: “Covering Water in a Changing World”
- 2015 Freelance Fellowship for ScienceWriters2015, National Association of Science Writers
- 2015 Chesapeake Bay Institute, Institute for Journalism and Natural Resources
- 2015 Frank Allen Field Reporting Award, Institute for Journalism and Natural Resources
- 2014 Rosen Fellowship, Society of Environmental Journalists
Professional Memberships
- Society of Environmental Journalists
- National Association of Science Writers
- Institute for Journalism and Natural Resources
- International League of Conservation Writers
- DC Science Writers Association
- Virginia Outdoor Writers Association (elected Board member 2019)
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