Work Samples

Long-form storytelling: “The Land Pays the Price”

THE PROJECT: America’s public lands (places where we hike, birdwatch, hunt, and seek solace; places where wildlife roam and biodiversity thrives; places of indescribable value) face new and escalating threats. Earlier this year, thousands of federal employees who steward public lands— people who care for the land, conduct valuable research, fight fires, and more—were indiscrimately terminated from their positions. At the Wyoming Outdoor Council, I helped coordinate a response, collaborating with our staff to gather signatures from nearly 1000 Wyomingites on an open letter to Wyoming’s congressional delegation opposing the firings.

However, as we worked to mobilize people across the state, we noticed a definite lack of emotional, human-centered stories on this issue in the media and other organizations’ coverage. That’s the gap my team and I sought to fill with “The Land Pays the Price,” a long-form reported story about a woman who lost her job as a wilderness ranger—but whose love of the land was so great that when I asked her to show me around the forest she used to work in, she didn’t hesitate to load up the saws for some impromptu trail maintenance. This story was printed in Frontline, WOC’s biannual print publication, as well as on the WOC blog and amplified via social media.

THE IMPACT: Stories like these can drive home the stakes of an issue better than any fact or figure can. Responses from readers included several that the story had nearly brought them to tears—while painting a fuller, more complex picture of what happens to public lands when the federal employees who care for them are fired.

Strategic Comms & Digital Engagement: Wyoming Legislative Session

Donec ac fringilla turpis. Phasellus sodales massa malesuada tellus fringilla, nec bibendum tellus blandit.

Publications: Frontline

Nulla lectus ante, consequat et ex eget, feugiat tincidunt metus. Donec eu est non lacus lacinia semper.