My father-in-law, Jerry McGahan, knew how to create a new variety of apple. He knew how to hunt with an eagle. He knew how to catch a porcupine. But most of all, he knew how to live well, which meant he knew how to die well. My essay about him won a National Magazine Award. It was published in The Georgia Review, and in The Best American Magazine Writing 2020.
The element lithium powers our phones and our electric cars. It is also one of the most effective treatments for bipolar disorder. But how much do we know about one of the oldest, scarcest elements in the universe, one on which our future increasingly relies? I wrote the life story of lithium, in five acts,…
We all know we should pick up after our pets. What happens when we don’t? In this piece for The Pulp, I explore the nitty-gritty of picking up poop, a subject that causes community strife all over the world. Among other things, this story is a reflection on our complicated relationship with rules.
Thirty years ago, Ed DesRosier saw non-Native businesses exclusively profiting off of Glacier National Park, which once belonged to his people, the Blackfeet. When he started his own tour company, the Park Service tried to shut him down. Now Sun Tours is the only company that tells Glacier’s story from a Native perspective. I joined…
I wrote about the absurd, abstract history of money and one wild-eyed, vegetarian, free-love-promoting German economist’s idea to create a currency that decayed over time. The story is published here, in Noema Magazine.
My hometown of Missoula has a new community news outlet called The Pulp. I wrote the first feature story for them, about a small team of EMTs and clinical social workers who respond to people experiencing mental health crises. The Mobile Support Team shows up to a scene not with sirens, guns, and flashing lights,…
Are we the same person all of our lives? The average human cell only lasts seven years. We, and everything else, are constantly in flux. So what endures? I explored these questions and others in this essay about identity, water, family and home for Noema Magazine.
