Selected Journalism & Essays

Out to Sea
On the exploitation of whales and the rights of cetaceans

One morning in the spring of 2019 a beluga whale swam up beside a red fishing boat off the far north coast of Norway. Eleven feet long and gleaming white, the animal drew close, tugging the ship’s ropes, rubbing against its hull, and opening his mouth as if expecting food.

Joar Hesten watched the whale from the boat’s deck. It was unusual to see a beluga so far south at that time of year.

Read more at Guernica.

A Brother’s Tribute
Profile of Taos Pueblo Chef CJ Bernal

It was July 2020, the height of the pandemic, when the call came from New Mexico. Carpio J. I. (CJ) Bernal’s sister, Coral Dawn Bernal, had been found dead. CJ, who had grown up on Taos Pueblo, was with his mother’s family in Chilliwack, British Columbia. The US border was closed to all but essential travel, but he had to get home.

As he made his way to his family, CJ learned more about Coral’s death. The cause was a heart arrhythmia, but the family suspected negligence.

Read more at edible New Mexico.

Selected Food & Travel

Literary / Interviews

"Threshold" - Glass Mountain
This essay won the 2018 Glass Mountain Award in Nonfiction

"This Year" - Pleiades

The Weight of an Empty Chair
On chronic absenteeism in the New Mexico schools

One Saturday a month, Angel Kirby, elementary principal at Albuquerque’s Mission Achievement and Success Charter School (MAS), spends her day off looking for missing children. Some of the kids have failed to show up to school for weeks at a time; others have been unreachable when absences piled up and attendance staff called their parents’ phones.

Read more at Searchlight New Mexico.

A Name I Would Know
On writing and friendship

As we talked, her words bubbled with a sharp wit that belied her soft brown eyes, eyes a half-size too large for her other, more delicate features. She touched my wrist, laughed at something I said. Her loose, easy way, her forthrightness, the sparkle of blush on her cheeks, her laugh, deep and full, it all captivated me.

I learned later it was my necklace that drew her to me. Tiny beads in a double loop set against white cotton. My style, as she would name it.

Read more at 34th Parallel.

"And Then Let Go" - The Cincinnati Review

“Departure” - Redivider

“Absence No. 4” - Storm Cellar

“Three Photographs” - South Loop Review

What Falls to Earth
On suicide and meteors

On June 30, 1908, a star-like body with a fiery tail tore through the clear morning sky above the vast Siberian forest. As it neared the ground, a column of light shot twelve miles into the air. Booms like artillery followed, and stones rained from the sky; houses shook and windows shattered. A wave of intense heat threw people from their chairs. Hundreds of reindeer scattered and burned.

Read more at Longreads.

Death threats. Harassment. Intimidation.
For New Mexico women, is public service worth the risk?

One Wednesday morning in April, Las Cruces City Councilor Johana Bencomo sat in a federal courtroom, watching with concern as a man was arraigned for making a death threat against her. “Stupid little bitch, get suicidal,” he had growled into her voicemail. “’Cause I will kill you.”

Read more at Searchlight New Mexico.