Author Archives: naila

Posted in Nature Notebook • Poetry • Science Tidbits

Clearstories

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I’ve been collaborating with photographer Stephen Petegorsky on a set of paired poems and photos, titled Clearstories. An excerpt from the project has now been published as an online chapbook at Terrain.org:

Clearstories

The project explores animal specimens that have been cleared and stained, a process in which they are treated with an enzyme to turn soft tissues transparent, then stained to make bones and cartilage stand out for studies of anatomy and morphology.

Two photo/poem pairs were also featured in Amherst Magazine.

Photo of Amherst Article

Top image: Fringe-Toed Sand Lizard, by Stephen Petegorsky.

Posted in Nature Notebook • Poetry

Porcupine

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My poem “Porcupine” is published this month in the Cider Press Review, and can be found here:

Porcupine

I wrote this poem watching a porcupine cropping grass at Smith College’s MacLeish Field Station in Whately, MA. I also caught a photo, shown above.

A black-backed gull pair in the sunset on Appledore Island.
Posted in Nature Notebook • Science Tidbits

The Reaper of the Sea

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I somehow didn’t post this essay that I wrote based on my time as artist in residence at the Isles of Shoals. Published by the wonderful nature-writing magazine Terrain.org, it centers on a necropsy of a seal pup that died from entanglement in ‘ghost gear,’ or a lost fishing net.

With the seal’s body as a window, it depicts the battle for the ocean among fishermen, marine animals, and scientists as once-decimated seal populations begin to boom – and contemplates how death mediates our connection to nature.

I’m very proud that this essay was also nominated by Terrain for a John Burroughs Nature Essay Award.

The Reaper of the Sea

The dead seal lies on the table. The bulk of it unignorable: the heavy torpedo-shaped body, gray as a sea in storm; the whiskered head, the flippers; a mound of muscled ocean.

A gaggle of undergraduates duly robed in reusable plastic aprons, wrist guards, and nitrile gloves stares at the gruesome yet strangely beautiful torpedo laid sleepy-eyed on the aluminum …

–Read more at Terrain.org

Featured • Posted in KidLit • Nature Notebook • Science Tidbits

The Monarchs of Winghaven

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I have some thrilling news, which is that my middle-grade novel, THE MONARCHS OF WINGHAVEN, will be published by Walker Books US in the spring of 2022:

PW Bookshelf announcement of THE MONARCHS OF WINGHAVEN

I’m so happy to have this opportunity to put a book into the world about a theme dear to my heart: a young person’s bond with nature. As a girl, I spent countless hours wandering the outdoors, birdwatching, taking nature notes, and learning to be silent and unobtrusive enough that animals from mice to skunks to snakes to muskrats came close enough for me to watch without even binoculars.

This book draws on many of those memories, and I’m beyond delighted for the opportunity to share them with others.

Posted in Poetry

Sleeping in the Forest

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Thinking of Mary Oliver today as this riff on my favorite of her poems, the beautiful Sleeping in the Forest, arrived in my mailbox in this year’s Connecticut River Review. In honor too of my high school summer writing students who shared this moment with me.

Posted in Poetry

Pomegranate

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On my return from ten days on Cape Cod, I was excited to learn that my poem “Pomegranate” was selected as the 2nd-prize winner in the Poetry Society of New Hampshire’s national competition. Poet Alfred Nichol was the judge.

The poem will appear in an upcoming issue of The Poets’ Touchstone.

Hooray!

Posted in KidLit

Patreon

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I’ve launched a Patreon!

Patreon is a way to support people creating things you like, via a monthly pledge, and receive creative work in return. You can edit your pledge at any time.

Become a Patron!

The Talechasers tier is kid-friendly for readers 8 and up, but should offer enjoyment for all ages, and the Scouts tier, while rated generally PG, will be aimed at adult readers.

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Posted in Nature Notebook

Keeping nature

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Nature journals have been on my mind lately. Really, they’re always on my mind.

The practice of nature journaling has been with me since I first started bird-watching at 12 years old. I’d go outdoors with a notebook, binoculars and a Rite in the Rain pen or pencil in tow. Then I’d take notes and make sketches, as detailed and as patiently as I could, of my observations of the nature around me.

Not long ago, adult coloring books became all the rage. People like them for the opportunity to relax, to express an artistic sensibility, to let go of the stress of work and family and finances and all the pressures of adult life.

Nature journals can provide exactly the same benefits, but with the added reward of getting outdoors…

Read more at The Daily Hampshire Gazette

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A nature journal page from Les Grands Causses, France.

Top image: My journals occupying a shelf with nature artifacts and a poster from the American Folk Art Museum 2018 installation on science illustrator Orra White Hitchcock.

Posted in Poetry

New England Poetry Club

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I’m so pleased and eager to announce that I’ll be this year’s judge for the New England Poetry Club 2019 Jean Pedrick Chapbook Prize. The award goes out to a chapbook published within the last two years.

My chapbook Water Street, from Finishing Line Press, won last year’s Pedrick Prize (alongside co-winner C. Prudence Arceneaux’s Dirt), so I’m looking forward to this chance to give back to the poetry community.

Selections from Water Street are now posted in the 2018 NEPC Prize Winner’s Anthology. Of the collection, judge Krysten Hill said:

What drew me into Naila Moreira’s Water Street was its immersive descriptiveness that never underestimates the power and tension that the natural world can embody. These powerful poems delivered me to all kinds of ecosystems thriving just underneath the surface in all their violent glory. There are times when the natural world collides with human destruction to create a sinister chain reaction. Moreira reminds us of a world where “…planes fall, frogs spawn/against backdrop of rubber, plastic, steel;/a thousand eggs; a thousand tiny bombs./They hatch into a universe of fear.” The speaker exists in nature’s hiding places and out in the open where they are exposed and vulnerable to the vulnerability that they see in nature. At times, these poems suggest a disquieting tone that haunted me throughout the day. At other times, I felt a liberating honesty and was grateful for how it shook me awake. —Krysten Hill

Chapbooks can be submitted via the NEPC submissions guidelines. I’m thrilled to read and explore the poetic work that comes my way for the Pedrick Prize.