2025 Writing Recap
A bunch of links, all in one place.
Dear Friends,
Happy New Year’s Eve! To wrap up the year, I wanted to write a quick newsletter sharing links to some of the projects I worked on this year that I’m most proud of. Since I’m a freelancer, my work doesn’t all end up in one place! So, here’s a quick list of highlights:
Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writer’s Grant: One of the biggest factors shaping my work this year was having received a coveted Arts Writer’s grant—on my third try! Thanks to the grant, I got to spend the year writing arts criticism for the Border Chronicle, where I’m now working half-time as the environment and arts/culture reporter. Some of the highlights included photographer David Taylor’s show COMPLEX, Karima Walker’s installation Graves for the Rain, photographer Eunice Adorno’s series Las Aguas Eran Salvajes, the Tucson Museum of Art’s exhibition Living with Injury, and the Mexicali Experimental Project.
Images from David Taylor’s exhibition COMPLEX at Tucson’s Pidgin Palace. Uncanny Rio Grande Valley: Also for the Border Chronicle, I spent the end of 2024 and the beginning of 2025 immersed in the work of fiction writer Fernando A. Flores—to me, one of the most inventive and interesting novelists working today. I also got to speak with Flores about the book in a joint interview on KJZZ (Phoenix NPR)’s The Show.
Can Indigenous Chileans Ever Return to their Land? I was honored to review the novel Chilco by Daniela Catrileo (trans. Jacob Edelman) for The New Republic’s August print issue. The novel engages with themes of Indigeneity, ecology, and queerness in a way at feels very close to some of the literary works coming out of North America at the moment (thinking of Billy-Ray Belcourt’s work, who I reference in the review, and Louise Erdrich’s The Mighty Red.)
Form, Object, Art: For Los Angeles Review of Books, I reviewed Verónica Gerber Bicecci’s recently translated art-and-image book The Company, which overlays a slightly modified short story by Mexican writer Ámparo Dávila onto images of a ghost town in Zacatecas, Mexico. I tried to do justice to Gerber Bicecci’s experimental style in the form of the review—you tell me if it worked!
A Theology of Smuggling: This year, I received the inaugural On the Brinck | Places prize, which gave me a grant to produce a work of scholarship about the Southwestern US for Places journal and to deliver a public lecture at the University of New Mexico’s School of Architecture. My project aimed to develop a genealogy of contemporary humanitarian activism in the borderlands, connecting the work of groups like the Tucson Samaritans to the late-1800s Protestant missionary activity in the region, and dwelling especially on the role of Southside Presbyterian Church.
A snapshot from accompanying volunteers with the Tucson Samaritans to the desert near Sásabe, Arizona. Mexico’s Amparo Reform: One of the articles I’m most proud of from my work as an environmental journalist this year is my coverage of Mexico’s amparo reform for Foreign Policy. In October, Mexico passed a reform to the Ley del Amparo, limiting the use of a key tool in environmental and human-rights fights. This largely flew under the radar of the English-language press, but it’s deeply consequential—including for some of the ongoing environmental conflicts I covered for Border Chronicle, such as the Plan Sonora, the proposed Saguaro Energía pipeline and liquid natural gas export terminal, and the proposal to build three new dams on the already impacted Río Sonora.
Scene from my favorite reporting trip of the year, to a ranch near Cananea, Sonora. Data Centers: When things already felt bad, climate- and water-wise, it turns out that they could get worse. The number of data centers has skyrocketed in the last year thanks to the widespread adoption of generative AI. I covered a hyperscale data center in New Mexico and data centers’ links to New Mexico’s recently passed desalination legislation for the Border Chronicle. There’s a lot more to be researched, written, and fought for on that front.
Finally, as you all know, my book Salt Lakes: An Unnatural History is available for pre-order! One great option for ordering is to use this link to the Border Chronicle’s Bookshop affiliate store—it will help my pre-order numbers while also giving a commission to my favorite employer independent regional media outlet.
Even better than that, call your local bookstore and ask them to order it for you! Hearing about a book from just three people can influence independent bookstores’ ordering.
I’ll have tour dates to share very soon, but in the meantime, you can check out this interview I did with journalist and researcher Daniel Rothberg for his newsletter Invisible Waters:
Thanks for reading and happy new year!
More in 2026,
Caroline