Jim O’Donnell – Author

My writing chronicles change – from people on the move to ecosystems in flux. My writing is a guidebook to understanding dying forests, repairing broken waters, setting foot on rising islands, understanding collapse, climate migration, adapting to tourism, and holding on to what you have – or thought you had. From journalism to literary non-fiction to full-on creative fiction, transformation is the thread that binds all my writing.

Selected Works

Books

Notes for the Aurora Society – 1500 Miles on Foot Across Finland

Journalism 

Why TV Meteorologists Are Talking About Beer, Chocolate, Peaches and Poison Ivy, Ensia

Was the Federal Government Required to Give Lands Away to the State Upon Statehood?

Can We Save This Iconic Tree from Climate Change? Ensia

How Vulnerable Are We To Collapse? Sapiens

The Return of Park Ranger Diplomacy, Sierra Magazine

Meet the Rural Advocates for Keeping Federal Lands Just They Way They Are, Sierra Magazine

Why Cuba’s Professionals Are Flocking to Tourism, Vrai Magazine

Aimed at Refugees, Fences Are Threatening European Wildlife, Yale Environment 360

The Big Business of Europe’s Migration Crisis, SAPIENS

New Mexico Zero Carbon 2065, Trend Magazine

In Leopold’s Footsteps, New Mexico Magazine

Climate Change Adaptation Under the Tuscan Sun, Vrai Magazine

Three Perfect Days in Trinidad, Cuba, Vrai Magazine

New Mexico’s Newest Monument, BBC Travel

Mesa Verde’s Surprising Story, BBC Travel

Tourists’ Tastes Craft Culture, Vrai Magazine

Literary Non-Fiction

The Black Islands Rising from the Sea, BBC Travel

The Boundaries of the Sacred – A Visit to Zuni Pueblo, Vrai Magazine

Digging In. Learning to Love New Mexico the Hard Way“, New Mexico Magazine

Red Flag Day in Facing the Change

A Long Time is a Short Time in Notes for the Aurora Society

The Value of the Earth in Notes for the Aurora Society

Majupi

Egypt, Day One in Hyenas Laughed at Me and Now I Know Why

This Dont Take No Skill

Fiction

Watercolors, in The Hopper

Hanging, Just Outside the World in Chaos of Hard Clay 

The Invincibility of Madame Mathilde in Rise and Go

A Funeral

Killing Pahnke in Catch2

Pioneers in Conceptions Southwest Volume XX, Number 2