A hidden side of the creative process When we believe in ourselves, we produce better work, but what happens when we can’t find that belief? Have you ever had a crushing life event that took the wind out of your sails but you still had to find a way to go on because your livelihood […]

A Lifelong Love Ever since I was a little girl, monarchs have fascinated me. I grew up surrounded by a field of wildflowers that was surround by woods with a river running through it. Most of my time was spent in this landscape where my curiosity was nurtured and my love for the natural world […]

There was a BEFORE, before there was an AFTER. This is how the story was made. After fleeing abuse in 2013, I returned to my creative passions, so I applied to Hollins University. My daughters and I our first roadtrip to Roanoke, VA in 2014. In 2016, what is now called THE ROAD TO AFTER […]

National Poetry Month BROWN GIRL DREAMING by Jacqueline Woodson BROWN GIRL DREAMING sparked my love of novels in verse. I appreciate all the sensory details, like drinking water out of scooped out gourds and the sounds of her surroundings. I felt like I was there with young Jackie as she navigated the changing landscape around […]

plus a Q&A with Heidi Stemple, author of COUNTING BIRDS Each winter since 2017, my daughters and I have participated in the Christmas Bird Count. This year was no different. After our first year in the CBC as feeder counters, at the end-of-day compilation, we met new birder friends. They happened to have a club […]

Day 1 Day one of Maine Audubon’s Brush with Nature was exciting. My car was packed and I was ready to go, after I tended to the monarchs I raise. I had been looking forward to this event for weeks, so a little rain didn’t stop me, and it set the mood for a lovely color […]

Photo by Brooke Larrabbee   It’s not easy to share about, but in this interview below I open up about my experience of surviving ten years of isolation and domestic abuse. The timeline is a little blurry, the locations I was kept at and which order they go in are a little fuzzy, but the […]

I’m still letting this sink in and can hardly believe it. I’m deeply honored and grateful to share that I’m now represented by the amazing Paige Terlip at the Andrea Brown Literary Agency ! ✨✨ We’re looking forward to all the projects we will bring into the world together! I’m so thankful for the opportunity […]

My 2020 Monarch season: 154 releases (73 females / 81 males) Survival rate: 93% In the wild, the survival rate is only about 3%. I kept a log book this year, journaling my observations, release data, and what we named each butterfly. This past year was hard, no doubt, but it also taught me to […]

Female Monarch on Goldenrod ©Rebekah Lowell In a not-so-instant—everything changed. We are used to everything happening in an instant. If an image takes more than a millisecond to load, we lose interest. If a coffee takes too long to make, we are impatient. If a text doesn’t come through right away, we think something is […]