Been a while since my last update & I have news of THREE MAJOR journalism awards to share!
In September I found out that our ProPublica series had also been awarded the 2020 Nina Mason Pulliam award for Outstanding Environmental reporting, in addition to the 2020 Kevin Carmody award for Outstanding Investigative Reporting. I had the honor of accepting this top award in environmental journalism live at the virtual awards ceremony at the opening of the Society of Environmental Journalists Annual Meeting. It was strange thanking a room of people I couldn’t see, but I’m 72% sure I didn’t say anything crazy, so we’ll call it a success. Anyway, this was a huge honor (and it comes with $10K!) and I’m still dumbstruck when I think about it.
Just a few weeks before we got that news, I got an email that our Polluter’s Paradise series also won the National Association of Science Writer’s 2020 Science in Society award for best coverage of science topics in a story series. Since everything is virtual now, they asked me to record an award acceptance video, which I did but I hate (don’t watch it!). This award meant a lot to me because it came from the organization that first got me excited about science writing when I sheepishly attended their annual meeting in Flagstaff in 2011.
Then finally, just this week, I found out that I won the Southwest Science Writers Association’s award for best long form science writing of 2020 for my Discover Magazine feature on the ecology of burial practices, Life After Death. I loved researching and writing this story and I’m honestly just so excited that people are enjoying reading my work and think I’m a good writer (imposter syndrome averted, for today).
This number of awards in just my third year as a journalist is honestly pretty overwhelming and makes me feel like I should probably just quit now while I’m ahead. But maybe there’s just a few other things I want to write first. Thank you all for reading and for visiting my site! Send me email through my contact form. I love hearing from you.
