CLICK HERE for a glimpse of my latest written stories for Discover magazine.
VIDEO CLIPS
FIVE-MINUTE SPOT featured on CBS News talking ecotourism and summer travel — or, read my more in-depth take on the topic for Discover HERE.
Co-wrote, co-produced and on-screen narrated for Midwest Emmy nominated mini-doc (The Des Moines Register): Ashes of an Icon.
Filmed, produced and edited in Uganda (The Des Moines Register): South Sudan Refugees Seek Iowa Adoption AND Iowa State Aims for Sustainable Rural Aid in Uganda
DISCOVER magazine | How to Save Planet Earth
Have you ever held a product in your hands and considered the existential weight of your purchase? Beyond each price tag hides a ripple effect. It expands from soil to waterways, grocery aisles to kitchen plates, factories to fulfillment centers and mail slots to landfills. [full article]
MIDWEST LIVING magazine | Where the Wind Pumps the Water
With a swig of coffee in the morning light, I watch the water from a large window in my rental cabin. Gusts of wind sweep swirling pockets across the surface of the Niobrara River. They look like schools of fish flirting with the dry world. [full article]
DISCOVER magazine | Redefining Suicide
Just speaking the word suicide — or reading this story headline — might make your stomach drop. There’s no gentle way to broach the topic. But the sheer number of people who are taking their own lives demands a closer look. [full article]
DISCOVER magazine | Deep Slow Breathing: An Antidote to Our Age of Anxiety?
Some of us are better at holding our breath than others. But we’ve all been put to the test. Tune in to your body next time you plunge your head into water. Close your lips and conserve the air within. Many people describe a wave of relaxation in this moment — an all-consuming calm, a quieting of the mind, a slowed mental state — until the lungs demand another breath. When that happens, most of us experience a rush of anxiety. [full article]
DISCOVER magazine | When Shame Goes Viral
When Monica Lewinsky emerged in 2014 after a decade of quiet existence, she had a message to share. She also had a master's degree in social psychology, earned in London where she hunkered down for grad school. [full article]
MIDWEST LIVING magazine | For the Love of Dogs
By 1:05 a.m. Monday, the temp hits 14 below zero. Gregg Phillips slips off a mitten, clicks on his headlamp and slides a latex-clad finger in a dog’s mouth. “He’s dehydrated,” Gregg tells the musher at a road crossing in northern Minnesota. She’ll have to make the last dash to the finish without Kenai, a rookie Alaskan husky on the team. [full article]
THE DES MOINES REGISTER | African bishop fights to get children to Iowa
KAMPALA, Uganda– Natalia Peni remembers sprinting into the skin-scraping bush, stilling her breath and hoping for dawn.
Soldiers from the Lord's Resistance Army looted her family's home and many others in Yambio, South Sudan, that night in 2006.
She was 10. Her father, Samuel Enosa Peni, an Episcopal cleric, was away. She narrowly escaped with her siblings and mother. But neighbors were killed. Children they knew were abducted.
Today, Natalia, 19, two younger sisters, and one brother live as refugees in Uganda, more than 600 miles from their parents and three younger siblings in Nzara, South Sudan. [full article]
USA TODAY | How frozen Minneapolis became a biking mecca
MINNEAPOLIS — The traffic light turned red, and Councilwoman Lisa Bender braked to a halt on her way to work on a balmy December morning.
She paused her talk of population diversity and neighborhood growth for a sip of coffee from the mug she carried. Then, as the signal turned green, she pedaled through the intersection, continuing her 2½-mile commute to City Hall.
Six months ago, the 37-year-old mother of two sold her car and joined a growing number of year-round bike commuters in a city where the average winter low hovers around 15 degrees. [full article]
THE DES MOINES REGISTER | Will Fly for Fish
DORCHESTER, IA— Tucked between the bluffs and rolling plains of northeast Iowa, cold water veins meander with an allure that many Iowans never know.
Craig Ritland of Waterloo caught the bug while growing up in Ames, before he ever heard of streams like North and South Bear Creek or the Yellow River. The idea of twirling float line like a lasso overhead intrigued him enough to make an investment in his preteen years.
He worked a paper route to buy a fly rod, which first only bent to sunfish and bluegill in small lakes and farm ponds of Central Iowa. [full article]
THE DES MOINES REGISTER | ISU students build better future in Uganda
KAMULI, Uganda — Everything changed for Elly Sukup the first time she encountered poverty.
She was an Iowa State University junior studying agriculture and part of the school's first service-learning trip to Uganda.
'It was the first time I had seen anyone truly hungry before,' Sukup said [full article]