Selected Articles

The Saddest Gringo: Moritz Thomsen in Exile. Salon, July 1998.

In 1990, I quit my bartending job in Seattle and spent six months bumming around Ecuador and Colombia. To make the trip a little less aimless, I sought out expatriate author and farmer Moritz Thomsen, eventually tracking him down in the port city of Guayaquil. He died there a year after we met, at age 76. Years later I wrote about the encounter for Salon.

On-line Marketing Goes One-on-One. Scientific American, December 1997.

In this one-page piece on what was then considered cutting-edge Internet ad-serving technology, I wondered whether the public would rebel against having their every online move monitored and analyzed.

Greetings from the Banc d' Arguin. The Atlantic (online), May 1998.

I took a five-week leave from my job as an editor at The Net magazine to travel across the interior of Mauritania with a friend who was finishing up three years of Peace Corps service there. It was by far the strangest, and also some of the best, traveling I've ever done. In addition to this story for The Atlantic, I published articles about traveling in Mauritania for Trips, the Discovery Channel Online, and Urban Desires.

Rocky Mountain Low. National Geographic Adventure, May 2000.

In 1999, I was lucky enough to get a Ted Scripps Fellowship in Environmental Journalism at the University of Colorado in Boulder. During my nine months there, I wrote a handful of freelance stories, including this one on the promotion of the Black Canyon of the Gunnison from national monument to national park.

Exploring Peru's North Coast. The Seattle Times, (Universal Press Syndicate), November 2000.

Another assignment I scored during my fellowship year, this one took me to the North Coast of Peru, which was far enough off the usual gringo circuit to pique my interest. I was particularly keen to find the fishing lodge in Cabo Blanco where the world-record marlin was caught in 1953. In the end, I managed to go fishing with Maximo Jacinto, one of the crew that landed the 1560-pound fish. No marlin, but I did manage to land a pretty nice dorado.

Did Mallory Make It? Salon, January, 2000.

The discovery of George Leigh Mallory's body high on Mount Everest rekindled the mystery the expedition that found him had set out to solve. It also led to accusations and recriminations among erstwhile team mates.

"Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed," Sierra, May/June 2005.

I was a fan of Jared Diamond's writing since I'd first read his book, The Third Chimpanzee, so it was an honor and a privilege to be able to interview him as part of my job as Current Affairs Editor for the Sierra Club.

"Global warming takes toll on cherished mountains. The Miami Herald, (Universal Press Syndicate), July 2006.

For the last 10 years, I've written an outdoor/adventure travel column for Universal Press Syndicate. The column, which runs in Sunday travel sections across the country, has covered everything from freediving to kiteboarding, barefoot hiking to big-wall climbing. The one highlighted here was about the startling changes occurring in the world's mountains due to global warming.

"Start by Arming Yourself With Knowledge," Sierra, Sept/Oct 2006.

When Al Gore was 40, he was taking his first run at the White House. When I was 40, I got to interview Al Gore for Sierra magazine. Going into the interview, I had one goal: get the man to laugh. Bingo.

Soy in the Amazon. The Virginia Quarterly Review, Fall 2007.

For an issue of VQR entirely devoted South America in the 21st Century, I traveled to Mato Grosso, Brazil, "to see for myself what I imagined to be the front line in the march of civilization, a place where the epic theme of Man versus Nature had finally assumed some awful clarity: On this side, industrial-scale monoculture; on that side, the paragon of biodiversity - a line in the jungle you could step across."

Update: The Fall 2007 VQR wins the National Magazine Award for Best Single-Topic issue.