For Curbed, I wrote about my childhood for the first time. My earliest sense memories are of construction: the smell of freshly sawed wood, the sound of hammering. I remember being in an airy, half-built room, picking up bent nails…
In October, we went to Hawaii! I’d never been before. We went to the Big Island and stayed for a week at a lovely resort. I couldn’t get over the sunsets. Nature there doesn’t disappoint. For one thing, there are…
I was delighted to discover that my essay, Bohemian Tragedy: The rise, fall, and afterlife of George Sterling’s California arts colony was a Notable in The Best American Essays 2019. The essay originally appeared in the Poetry Foundation. You can…
Way back in February, we took our RV to Joshua Tree National Park in Southern California. It’s one of the most surreal places I’ve ever been, like walking inside a Roadrunner cartoon. At one point we were walking down a…
Last week, the Kincade Fire tore through Sonoma County, where I live, and 200,000 people were evacuated. My town of Petaluma became the first stop for evacuees. I interviewed some of the evacuees for The Washington Post. Hearing their stories…
In September, I had the honor of spending two weeks at a writing residency hosted by Hypatia-in-the-Woods in Washington. During that time, I stayed in a cabin called Holly House and worked on my current novel. Here’s the living room:…
Speaking of Alta, I was also on their podcast talking about my article on Jack London. Listen here! (The above picture makes me laugh.)
I got my new copy of Alta and am thrilled with the layout of my article on Dorothea Lange. In the 1950s, Monticello in Napa was turned into a lake and reservoir. Lange, who took iconic photos of the Dust…
For The Washington Post’s KidsPost section, I wrote about summer in Antarctica, lost penguins, and mummified seals. Excerpt: Bergstrom frequently sees mummified seals in the valleys, as the cold, dry atmosphere preserves their bodies. Carbon dating reveals that some of…
I wrote a humor piece with Marcia Simmons for The Belladonna. The other day my grandson made the woman in the GPS British. Do I need some English lady bossing me around? I threw his phone in the harbor, told…