Hillary Rosner is a science journalist and editor who teaches journalism at the University of Colorado, Boulder. She is also a friend and fellow member of Scilance, a network of 30+ science writers that has been meeting up online for 20 years. Over the years, I’ve loved following Hillary’s thoughtful, adventurous reporting on wildlife conservation, […]
Nature
Our neighbors of ten years moved away about a month ago. They were an older couple; L., the husband, was the one we interacted with the most. He was a commercial contractor and drove a big black pickup, but he also made sure to let my wife and me know he had never once voted […]
Last week my family traveled to Oregon for an end-of-summer trip. We wanted to start in Bend, in the central part of the state. There we would hike and explore a bit—somewhat to her dismay, I was especially eager to take my daughter up South Sister, one of the Three Sisters volcanoes—before driving down to […]
Time is escaping me today. What day is this, anyway? This post first ran in February of 2016, and this morning I landed in Frankfurt, Germany, after a chain of cancelled and delayed flights from Colorado, which has my head swimming. What day is this, anyway, is a real question. It turns out to be […]
This post originally appeared in May of 2020. A few days ago, I was walking idly along a mountainside near my house when I noticed the lower branches of a ponderosa pine, heavy with bullet-sized pollen cones. Intrigued by their purplish color, I plucked one, piercing it with my thumbnail. The juice came out magenta […]
Hello, LWON community! I’m new to the blog, and I’m thrilled to be included in this excellent company of writers and readers. I hope you’ll enjoy my first post. ——— Lauren drew her feet up slowly from the water and gave me a look somewhere between worry and wonder. It was late afternoon, and we […]
A couple of weeks ago I spent a long weekend with my dad in Astoria, the town in Oregon where I grew up. Our visits tend to go like so: On the first day I arrive in the late afternoon and we go for a walk, either at a beach or around the neighborhood. The […]
In 2021, I discovered figs, and I wrote about it here. Where have figs been all my life? I asked. A generous neighbor had a productive fig tree and over the next few Augusts, I made fig tarts (pictured above), fig cake (gift link to the recipe in the New York Times – you’re welcome), […]
