During the ten years I worked as a reporter in Mendocino County, I was fully absorbed by public life in rural California: the day-long meetings, the slow-moving water politics, the wildfires and the wildlife and the people who don’t have good enough internet to be like everyone else. My first novel, A Schedule of Drugs in the Valley of Death, was about muddling towards a new life at the end of the outlaw cannabis industry.
I’m currently working on a new novel, Missing the Point at The Weekly Again, about a disgraced publicist turned small-town reporter, her opinionated editor, and the enigmatic owner of the local weekly paper. It’s part satire, part elegy, and mostly a love letter to the absurdity of life in pursuit of the truth.
Journalism
Some of my favorite pieces dealt with animals and water. My first radio piece ever was about the Potter Valley Water Project, and my last one was about a woman who incorporates purple urchins into her artwork.
Fiction
Isobel Reinhardt is a hot mess. The daughter of a wire-walker turned federal fugitive and a high-end sex worker who likes to call herself a feminist, Isobel has failed decisively at everything she’s put her hand to. So she comes to Mendocino County to grow pot for a woman who knows all her family secrets.
As death and madness converge in a lonely country house at the end of a long dirt road, Isobel realizes the role of ferocity and beauty in her life.
Current
I still write non-fiction about serious environmental issues: fire resilience in the inland part of the county, and the state of the ocean on the coast. My latest piece, for the Mendocino County Fire Safe Council, was about a prescribed burn at the Round Valley Airport.
There’s no denying the charisma of the ‘celebrity pycnopodia,’ whom I met last year when I went tidepooling at an undisclosed location with some scientists trying to solve the mystery of why this keystone mesopredator has gone nearly extinct.
You can learn more about the pycnopodia in my pieces at Word of Mouth or MendoFever.