About
I’m a former ship captain, marine biologist, high school science teacher, and spokesperson for a federal agency who now writes fiction, memoir, satire, essays, commentary and poetry. My work has been published in the Stonecoast Review, Wooden Boat, American Bungalow, The Belladonna Comedy, and others. I have also written briefing materials for three cabinet secretaries and two U.S. Presidents and have extensive experience with the media, having been interviewed by nearly every major print, broadcast and wire service in the U.S. and print and wire services in eight foreign countries. Since leaving the federal service I’ve authored more than 60 published articles on sailing, the sea, endangered species, social and environmental justice, and political satire.
I am seeking representation for a nonfiction narrative about my experiences as spokesperson for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Alaska under hostile conditions that tried to compel me and other biologists to promote the interests of the oil and gas industry at the expense of wildlife, habitat, and a stable climate. What do you do if your government bosses order you to lie and break the law and threaten your job if you don’t? What do you do if the penalty for telling the truth means losing your job, income, and possibly your home? What happened during the George W. Bush administration in the early 2000s was the precursor and template for what’s happening today, both in the federal workplace and in the fight to slow climate change. Readers deserve to know how it helped to set in motion what we’re seeing now. For three years during that time I was also whistleblowing to the New York Times through an intermediary. The reason for not going directly to the NYT was that the Bush administration had jailed a reporter for several months for not revealing her sources, and when the Interior Department told me to give them everything I had on this NYT reporter because they were going to go after her, I had nothing to give them because I had never emailed or spoken with her.
