Sarah Gilman
Website
I studied studio art and biology in college and wasn't quite satisfied with either. The art world looked hermetic, sealed off in cities away from the landscapes that I loved. And the science world felt binding, too, with its sprint to publish clunky treatises for an audience of other scientists. Writing, though, stole the best from both fields -- the creativity, the exploring, the analysis and the always-and-forever-learning -- and, at its best, seemed like it could bring the same important topics explored by art and science to a much broader audience of people. So here I am, still at it. I write about the environment, energy, science and miscellany from Portland, Oregon. I'm also a current contributing editor and former staff editor for High Country News, an environmental magazine about the American West. You can find more of my writing at sarahmgilman.com. I tweet @Sarah_Gilman.

Redux: Unintentional treevotee

This post original published on Nov. 20, 2017 I never meant for this to happen. When I moved to the Pacific Northwest from arid Colorado three years ago, I was one of those people who insisted on horizons. The town where I was born is a place where the foothills of the Rockies stand like […]

Strawberries in the blast zone

“When one is alone and lonely, the body gladly lingers in the wind or the rain, or splashes into the cold river, or pushes through the ice-crusted snow. Anything that touches.” –Mary Oliver, “Leaves and blossoms along the way: A poem” It was 95 degrees out on the day I drove towards the wildfire. I […]

Spring; arrival

When, awake one day, the air feels different. Warmer, maybe, dirt wicking up through snow. And blood from some coyote kill tunneling down on the sharpness of its departing heat.

This Valentines Day, say it with grubs

At last, it is here. February 14th: Your favorite party for beheaded Christian martyrs. And your opportunity to tell that special someone just how much you care. So what are you to do now that those gum-lacerating conversation hearts are no more? Or when the greeting cards on offer just involve too many soft kittens […]

It comes upon you suddenly

Fog is like water, in the valley where I live. As dusk approaches, rivulets of cold air flow down the slopes and gullies of the surrounding mountains. They pool in the flats, the horizon line where dark brush rises from snow blurring as if smudged, the softness blending up, beginning to erase the world. Leaves […]

We walk on waves; they fly below

It has been said that penguins appear to be wearing tuxedos—crisp and elegant in their blacks and whites. This is not so of Humboldt penguins. If Humboldt penguins are wearing tuxedos, then they have been wearing them to jump trains for a couple of weeks, sleeping atop coal slag or down in the dingy corners […]