Don’t Save Anything is notes from a National Geographic writer. I’ve been on the road for the magazine for a long time, and this stack is sometimes about what a project I’m working on, or what it’s like to work inside and outside the yellow border. But more often it’s about connections, journeys and the small stories I’ve found while chasing after what I thought were the big ones.
Generally I try to avoid writing about the news and instead create something here that sits a few steps removed, though I also believe that we exist in a kind of quantum story-space, where everything, ultimately, is connected. I think our lives are murmuration, in other words. We keep an eye on things close by, then fly on in faith hoping we won’t crash. I’m also the co-creator of the investigative pod Unfinished: Deep South, and author of the forthcoming book Frostlines (Ecco 2025), in which I travel the Arctic from west to east, speaking to animals, meeting people, crossing ice and tugging at the entangled threads of life in the far north.
For now I skew Arctic in this space, toward landscapes and other-than-human beings, because I have been thinking of those things and traveling with or through them for a while, and because cold is fleeting and must be loved while it lasts.
I borrowed the title from James Salter, a novelist I often return to, who once told me, generously, that “to write is a marvelous choice.” I’m slowly updating this “about” page, and thank you for joining me here!
Why subscribe?
Don’t Save Anything will arrive in your inbox at least once a week. I’ll aim for more as I get going. Some stories will be longer, some very short. I’ll keep up the Instagram-y word-picture posts that I still love to do, that I can’t help but do.
Paid subscribers will get more of everything—the free weekly posts, plus additional photos, interviews and deeper insights. You’ll also get more dispatches from my fieldwork. These will often be raw, immediate. And I plan to do live discussions in the future with some of my favorite collaborators/writers/photographers.
Founding members get it all. Of course they do—they help make my work possible. Access to everything, more access to me, signed copies of my book. And—to borrow from Roxanne Gay—gratitude. Thank you for supporting this project.
