Welcome!
About This Collection
First things first, I hope you enjoy what this collection has to offer. And yes, it truly is a collection more than it is a blog. The majority of these pieces were written in other times, with other keys or graphite-smudged fingers, and many of their words were never initially intended for anyone, save a blank page.
You’ll find that most revolve around some interwoven concepts: nature/ecology; senses of place/culture; environmentalism; human-human/human-land/human-non-human relationships; memory/nostalgia/time. These are just a few themes that fascinate, inspire, and challenge me.
The pieces themselves, then, are grouped up top into four broad categories: Essays, Poetry, Prose, and Journalism. They’re collections, but not at all dusty relics on a shelf. I’ll be adding new work as I create it!
For two months in 2020 (January – March), I was fortunate to have an incredible semester abroad in Senegal. Sadly, COVID-19 forced an early return, but as a record of my time there, I posted what I could, when I could in the Study Abroad page above.
Finally, from September 2023 – January 2024, I was honored to join the Peace Corps, returning to Senegal to train for service as an Urban Agriculture volunteer. Though it was an incredible and truly full-circle opportunity, a number of personal/family factors stacked up, and I realized it wouldn’t be fair — to my Senegalese community or myself — to have one foot in and one foot out the door. So while I pivoted, my blogs from those months can be found under Peace Corps.
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Featured Work
About Me
I used to tell everyone who suggested — from high school teachers to my author mother to my English-teaching grandmother — that there was no way I’d ever enjoy writing as a hobby or career. To their told-you-so delight, and the ire of my younger stubbornness… that’s changed.
Writing has become a go-to means to both process and crystallize my formal education, work life, positions of leadership, relationships, social/ecological perspectives, wilderness expeditions, other travel experiences, day-to-day monotony (and thrills), and nature of my personal growth + change over time.
I’ve been fortunate to have my work published by organizations including Post Carbon Institute (as a featured author on Resilience.org), Overstory Alliance, the Institute for the Study of Energy and Our Future, the Millennium Alliance for Humanity and the Biosphere, the Campaign to Save the Boundary Waters, PressAfrik, NPR, Wilderness Inquiry, and Friends of the Mississippi River.
When I’m not messing around with personal projects, my primary work comes as an external relations coordinator and outdoor educator/guide for MN-based Wilderness Inquiry — though I’ve worn many past hats, from line cook to researcher & content developer to climbing wall staff to xc ski trail builder.
Outside the work realm, you’ll probably find me playing music or sports, biking, reading, trying new recipes, climbing rocks + trees + occasionally bigger things (see those person-shaped specks on the Utah arch up top?), or finding any reason to be inside or out with friends and family.
College may or may not be one of the best times of your life, but it certainly is one of the pure craziest for opportunity, growth, and reflection. I’m a 2021 graduate — BA in Global Studies, minor in French Studies — of the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, though a borne-and-bred Wisconsinite (go Pack go!).
Basically, thanks for coming along for the ride. I couldn’t tell you where this writing thing will lead, but for now I’m just happy to fill this little carve-out of the internet with some of my creative soul.
Jake Marble 