Each of our contributors passionately specialize in environmental, social justice and sustainability, and have worked hard for years to build hope for the future.
Sarah Catherine Gait is a professional musician and self-taught poet and writer from rural Cumbria, Northern England. Having been educated at home by a classicist mother and scientist father, she pursues creative writing during her own time, as well as analytical writing. After gaining a Master of Music degree from the Royal Academy of Music, in which her research project presented and reported on small-scale pop-up classical music concerts in deprived areas of rural Northern England, Sarah now pursues a career as a freelance musician and composer. Sarah’s varied writing portfolio includes an appointment as freelance programmer writer to the BBC Proms Publication Team, librettist for a musical, and author of over a hundred poems, inspired by her own experiences and roots in a poor yet academic rural background. Of particular importance to Sarah is the natural world and our human relationship with it. She is a fervent admirer of the mountains and lakes where she grew up, and an advocate of the need for respect and preservation of our natural home, as well as its other non-human inhabitants. In the musical sphere, Sarah’s creative work in tandem with, or inspired by, the natural world, has received awards from organizations such as the Royal Philharmonic Society (UK) and MDW ISA Digital Award Vienna (Austria).
Aaron Gilbreath is an essayist, journalist, and previously a contributing editor at Longreads. His essays have appeared at Harper's, The Atlantic, The New York Times, Sierra and The Dublin Review. His third book, The Heart of California: Exploring the San Joaquin Valley, was a finalist for the 2022 Oregon Book Award. His work has been nominated for a James Beard Award and named a notable in Best American Essays, Best American Travel Writing, and Best American Sports Writing. Check out his serialized book about the overlooked cult classic album from the 1990s, Deconstruction and his Alive in the Nineties music Substack.
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Piper is a recent graduate from Whittier College with a BA in political science and environmental justice. She currently lives outside of Austin, TX. In her free time, she enjoys reading, experimenting in the kitchen, lifting weights, and staying healthy overall.
Andrew Gumbel is an LA-based journalist and author who writes regularly for The Guardian, among other publications. His acclaimed books include Oklahoma City: What The Investigation Missed and Why It Still Matters, and Won't Lose This Dream: How An Upstart Urban University Rewrote the Rules of a Broken System.
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Steven Gute is a filmmaker who has worn many hats in his now 20-year career. Gute works as a director, producer, writer, cinematographer, journalist and editor, and already has a long resume of credits stretching across a multitude of formats. While his origins lay in narrative films, he eventually worked on a number of documentary films, including: Leonardo Di Caprio's 11th Hour; followed by Radicalized, a portrait of millennial resistance during the Occupy movement; ongoing front-line documentation of protests at Standing Rock and Black Lives Matter; and ultimately, leading a team to the Arctic to film glaciers in decline for HBO’s Ice on Fire.
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Kathleen Hellen is an award-winning poet whose third, full-length collection Meet Me at the Bottom was released in 2022. Her publications include The Only Country Was the Color of My Skin, Umberto’s Night, which won the poetry prize from Washington Writers’ Publishing House, and two chapbooks, The Girl Who Loved Mothra and Pentimento. Featured on Poetry Daily and Verse Daily, her work is widely published and has appeared in such journals as Arts & Letters, Barrow Street, The Carolina Quarterly, Cimarron Review, Colorado Review, Drunken Boat, Massachusetts Review, New Letters, Nimrod, North American Review, Prairie Schooner, The Rumpus, The Sewanee Review, Sixth Finch, Southern Humanities Review, Subtropics, The Sycamore Review, Tampa Review Online, West Branch, and elsewhere. Hellen’s awards include the Thomas Merton prize for Poetry of the Sacred and prizes from the H.O.W. Journal and Washington Square Review.
Mark Irwin is the author of eleven collections of poetry, including Joyful Orphan (2023), Shimmer (2020), A Passion According to Green (2017), American Urn: Selected Poems (1987-2014), and Bright Hunger (2004). Recognition for his work includes The Nation/Discovery Award, two Colorado Book Awards, four Pushcart Prizes, the James Wright Poetry Award, the Philip Levine Prize for Poetry, and fellowships from the Fulbright, Lilly, and NEA. Purchase Irwin's newest collection of poems, Joyful Orphan, which includes "Radiance" and "We" through the University of Nevada Press.
James Joyce III is Founder and Chief Visionary Officer of Coffee With A Black Guy, an innovative movement in which he facilitates conversations about race and perspective for community groups and organizations. Joyce is a former award-winning journalist and runner-up in the 2021 Santa Barbara mayoral election.
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Erin Aubry Kaplan is a Los Angeles journalist and columnist who writes regularly for the New York Times and Los Angeles Times. She was the first African American to hold the position of weekly columnist for the Los Angeles Times. She is a former staff writer for the LA Weekly and the author of the books: Black Talk, Blue Thoughts and Walking the Color Line: Dispatches from a Black Journalista, and I Heart Obama. She lives in Inglewood, California, with her six dogs.
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We publish deeply reported journalism focusing on environmental, sustainability and social justice issues. Our goal is to bring you difference-making work that provokes discussions, inspires reflection and speaks to the times with stories that prove timeless.
PUBLISHER
Tracy McCartney
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
Joe Donnelly
MANAGING EDITOR
Tori O’Campo
CONTENT CREATOR
Sam Slovick
ART DIRECTOR
Nancy Hope
CONTRIBUTING EDITORS
Erin Aubry Kaplan
Karen Romero
Tony Barnstone
ASSOCIATE EDITOR
Tanner Sherlock