Features
2023
“Fossil fuel ideologues are desperate to keep coal alive, no matter the costs” — feature on lobbying and legal efforts to keep coal plants alive past retirement dates in Kentucky, West Virginia, and Wyoming (Sierra)
“A celebrated startup promised Kentuckians green jobs. It gave them a ‘grueling hell on earth.’” — investigation into bankruptcy of controlled environment agriculture company AppHarvest (Grist, co-published with the Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting)
“Hunting for shark fossils in Kentucky” — essay on impact of climate change narratives in Kentucky (Bitter Southerner)
“Closing the Coal Ash Loophole” — story on Kingston settlement and 2023 proposal to revise coal ash rule (Grist)
“As Enforcement Lags, Toxic Coal Ash Keeps Polluting U.S. Water” — update on the 2015 coal ash rule (Yale360)
“Washed Away” — illustrated story on how flooding leads to uninsured landslides in Eastern Kentucky (Bitter Southerner, Grist; support from Economic Hardship Reporting Project; finalist for Institute Nonprofit News 2023 Insight Award for Visual Journalism-Large Division)
2022
"After the Flood” — farmers along Troublesome Creek grapple with the 2022 flooding in Eastern Kentucky (Sierra)
“Seeking stability in school when flood waters rise” — impacts to education after 2022 flooding in Eastern Kentucky (Washington Post)
“Fenced In” — deep dive into the Tennessee Valley Authority’s morphing from democratic power experiment to monopoly (Sierra)
“The fires below” — little-understood coal seam fires devastating Montana’s Powder River Basin (High Country News; support from Howard G. Buffett Fund for Women Journalists from International Women’s Media Fund)
“In coal country, a new chance to clean up a toxic legacy” — how rare earths are extracted from coal waste (Washington Post)
“The Bee Charmer” — re-queering of Fried Green Tomatoes franchise (Oxford American)
“Memphis may have the sweetest water in the world, but toxic waste could ruin it all” — comic with Martha Park (Guardian; support from Economic Hardship Reporting Project)
“Making Paradise” — profile on Appalachian textiles artist (Oxford American)
2021
“Is this giant greenhouse in Kentucky the future of farming?” — profile on AppHarvest founder (Rolling Stone)
“An ‘Eco-Friendly’ Danish company is outsourcing pollution to West Virginia, locals say” (Vice; co-published by In These Times; support from The Leonard C. Goodman Institute for Investigative Reporting and Heinrich Böll Stiftung Foundation)
“Can harvesting rare earth elements solve the coal ash crisis?” (Sierra)
“Communities to coal plants: Clean up your mess before you go!” (onEarth)
2020
“A Legacy of Contamination: How the Kingston coal ash spill unearthed a nuclear nightmare” — long-form, narrative investigation into the nuclear contamination from Oak Ridge known to be in the riverbed and coal ash spill site during the cleanup, and how workers and the nearby community were kept in the dark (Grist; support from Investigative Reporters and Editors Freelance Fellowship; finalist for Reed Environmental Writing Award from Southern Environmental Law Center)
“‘They deserve to be heard’: sick and dying coal ash cleanup workers fight for their lives” — feature covering the medical, mental, and economic costs to cleanup workers following 2008’s Kingston coal ash spill (Guardian; Southerly; Longform; support from Economic Hardship Reporting Project; finalist for Reed Environmental Writing Award from Southern Environmental Law Center; finalist for Digital Enterprise Reporting from the Deadline Club)
“Ashes to ashes and on into trees” — Bay Area startup greening the death industry (Sierra)
2019
“A Kentucky town’s struggle with illegally dumped radioactive waste” — an illegal dumping in Estill County (onEarth; Earth Island Journal)
“Remembering Kingston” — feature on the 11th anniversary of the Kingston coal ash spill (Sierra)
RADIO & PODCASTS
2024
“AppHarvest was touted as Appalachia’s Future. What happened?” (West Virginia Public Broadcasting)
2023
“AppHarvest Interview” (Eastern Standard)
“Bad Green Tomatoes” (Appalachian Firesides)
“Squash Appalachia” (Trillbilly Workers Party)
“Landslide Coverage” (Eastern Standard)
“How journalists used comics to explain landslide insurance troubles in Kentucky (West Virginia Public Broadcasting)
ESSAYS, BOOK REVIEWS, STORIES
2021
“Magic City” (Kenyon Review)
“The Possum Queen (Ecotone)
2020
“The poet on the garbage crew” (High Country News)
2019
“Vista” (Alpinist)
“Solar Gain” (Entropy)
“I’m Trying to Tell You I’m Sorry” (Pleiades)
2018
“Composting” (Prairie Schooner)
“Ha Ling” (Brevity)
“Homing” (Blue Mesa Review; selected by Leslie Jamison)
“"Homing" is about finding home through missing it. It's about pigeons and floods and coal country and monogamy, but it's also an eloquent, sensitive exploration of what it means to find beauty in places that other people don't notice, and what it means to find yourself belonging to a place, or not belonging enough. More than anything, it's alive to the complexities of how so many experiences can feel several different ways at once." — Leslie Jamison
“The Orange Tree” (The Offing; featured on “This Week in Essays” in The Rumpus)