I am a writer and wildlife ecologist with a passion for untamed spirits and remote places. These interests are the foundation of my unpublished novel, Shadows in the Selva. The story follows a woman’s search for new horizons, but the setting is far from ordinary: the Upper Amazon Basin of Peru. While biologist Michelle Greenwald struggles with life-altering decisions, you’ll be lured down jungle paths of beauty and danger, and will meet people whose future depends on the rainforest.

Michelle travels to Peru to embark on a research study of harpy eagles, hoping to experience a change in pace from her too-predictable life in Logan, Utah. When she meets Julián, a house builder with a wealth of rainforest knowledge, their nature-based friendship sparks feelings she has never had for anyone, and gradually, their relationship changes the entire trajectory of her life. But Julián has different ambitions, and eventually, she learns that their views about the rainforest are not the same.

Enjoy my blog posts! They provide excerpts from the novel and describe some of the characters. My creative nonfiction essays, accessed above, explore the connections I have with the environment and with family.