Travel Writing Project
Two Autumns
Two Autumns is a series of essays about traveling in New Zealand and Japan in 2018. An ongoing project, these essays capture the spirit of early twenty-first-century backpacking culture while excavating the past through old photos and books, exploring themes in travel, nature, conservation, memory, and identity.
Arthur's Pass, New Zealand
"Kea Call"
Paperbark (on hiatus as of 2024)
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"I’d thought it would feel light to move around with nothing but a backpack, liberating to follow my own agenda, but instead I found myself searching for something solid to grasp onto, like a clear path into the clouds."
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Bronze Award in the Animal Encounter category of the 18th Annual Solas Awards for Best Travel Writing
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Los Angeles, California, and Auckland, New Zealand
"To Auckland"
TulipTree Review 9​
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"What would I see when the sun came up? Now that I had finally left, who would I be?"
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Honorable mention in TulipTree's 2021 Wild Women writing contest
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Routeburn Track, New Zealand, and Kyoto, Japan
"Routeburn"
Unpublished​
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"In a world that favors those with the sharpest teeth, retreat can be a wild, hopeful thing."
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This essay was long-listed for the 2021 Fish Publishing Short Memoir Prize. It is currently being revised.
Images on this page: Daitoku-ji in Kyoto, Japan; the kea, in Arthur's Pass New Zealand; Hobbiton movie set in Matamata, New Zealand; Harris Saddle on Routeburn Track, New Zealand. All images are my own and cannot be used without my express permission.