Join BMI and Orion Magazine for a virtual discussion with publisher Neal Thompson and contributing editor Meera Subramanian about writing at the intersection of nature and culture. What are some ways writers can approach environment and climate change, in both the personal and planetary sense? What are some strategies to conduct research and interviews given the volatile political landscape, from the local level to the global? How can writers navigate the publishing landscape as support for the arts, humanities, and journalism continues to shrink? This free hour-long conversation will also include time for audience Q&A.
Meera Subramanian is an award-winning freelance journalist who writes narrative nonfiction about home in the personal and planetary sense, in a time of climate crisis. Her work has appeared in publications such as Nature, The New York Times, The New Yorker, Virginia Quarterly Review, and Orion, where she is a contributing editor. She is author of A Better World Is Possible: Global Youth Confront the Climate Crisis, a nonfiction YA graphic novel (Forthcoming from First Second 2026) and A River Runs Again: India’s Natural World in Crisis (PublicAffairs 2015), which was short-listed for the Orion Book Award. A National Geographic Explorer, Meera is a perpetual wanderer who can’t stop digging in the dirt to plant perennials and looking up in search of birds from her home base atop a glacial moraine on the Atlantic’s western edge.
Neal Thompson is the publisher of Orion magazine. A former newspaper reporter, he has written for the New York Times, the Washington Post, Outside, Esquire, Men’s Health, and others. He’s the author of six nonfiction books and biographies, most recently The First Kennedys. His books have been named “best of” by NPR, the Wall Street Journal, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Neal has appeared on NPR, PBS, The Daily Show, CNN, The History Channel, Fox, and ESPN. Neal taught creative nonfiction at the University of North Carolina’s Great Smokies Writing Program and Hugo House in Seattle. He’s a former Seattle Arts and Lectures board member and an avid skier, swimmer, hiker, traveler.
This program is supported by the Conservation Lands Foundation.