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.
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.
I recently got a fun assignment to profile Jimmy Chin for GQ, a job that brought me to a cliff in the Tetons where the Oscar-winning climber, photographer, and filmmaker talked me off the ledge. Here’s the story.
We were high in the Canadian rockies, clambering over rocks and snowfields, hopped up on endorphins and the scenic beauty around us. Nothing could get us down. And then my 4-year-old left his favorite stuffed animal on the mountain. I wrote this essay for Outside describing what happened next.
Manuel Chaves was a Civil War hero who also killed and enslaved Native Americans. How should we remember him?
