Charlotte is a writer and outdoor educator living in Truckee, California. She has an MFA from the University of New Hampshire and a BA from Dartmouth College.
Truckee Official
Artist Profile
video by Court Leve
Publications:
Literary Journals
Coming Soon:
“Dig a Hole Before Winter,” personal essay in Cimarron Review (2024)
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“Becoming Forest,” personal essay in Fire Season (Summer 2024)
“I held a pitchfork piled with burning pine needles. Tines low over the dry ground, I let flames spread to the duff below. Tongues of orange and gold licked out from the two-foot-high flaming front uphill from me. The smell of smoke was thick in the air, even with bandanas over our faces.”
“Trapped” short story in Newfound (Spring 2022)
“I never ate the first and only pie I ever baked. Calling it a pie is generous; it didn’t bake so much as blacken to a mass, more like a meteorite than a pastry. I blame the grizzly.”
“On Island” short story in Salamander Magazine (Fall/Winter 2021-2022)
“According to all the usual rules, the goat wasn’t allowed on the mail boat. But the captain would make an exception just this once for the new lighthouse keeper.”
“Bench by the Mystic” short story in Camas Magazine (Winter 2021)
“Startlingly wild between folds of pastel prints, feathers rustled at Eleanor’s touch. They were yellowed like antique lace, even rusting to sienna in places—not gleaming as Eleanor remembered. And yet, when she stroked the soft down of the cloak’s edge, she felt a swoop of weightlessness behind her navel.”
“Catching Light” short story in Whitefish Review (Summer/Fall 2021)
“We both knew she wouldn’t last the year. When Adelaide told me under the flat fluorescent lights of the Missoula hospital she was done there and wanted to go home, neither of us acknowledged what that meant. I just squeezed her hand. I worried I’d crush it like a bird.”
“Geologic Cure” essay in The Hopper (2020)
“Piercing up from Earth’s skin, the rock forest I weave between is as disconnected from normalcy as I am. I should be surrounded by beech trees and maples, their bright leaves drifting to rest on glacier-smoothed boulders. Here, everything is angular, muted. Snow flecks the air.”
“Tangled Moose” essay in Green Mountains Review (2020)
“That morning I wanted to delight in the lace cottonwoods fanned against blue mountains. I wanted the brilliance, the prospect of corduroy tracks between lodgepole pines to distract me from the weight of seeing my grandfather in the hospital living center. His face was wreathed in oxygen tubes.”
“The Endangered Species, Fire” graphic narrative in Paperbark Magazine (2019)
“Fires, like wolves, hunted into extinction, ever out of reach.”
“Things to Do around a Lookout” graphic poem adaptation in Pinball Magazine (2016)
“Lightning on the Mountain” graphic novel excerpt in Nashville Review (2016)
“A new smoke, white feather born of lightning spark and underbrush, waits for its name.”
Publications:
Magazines
“Want to Be a Nordic Skier?” in Far West Nordic News (2023)
“Maybe you’re bored—you’d rather be moving faster, or exploring more interesting terrain. Maybe you’re frustrated—you see others gliding along like they were born with skis on their feet. Maybe you don’t feel like you belong in this mix of spandex warriors, slow shufflers, and crunchy granola types. I hear you.”
“Hunting for Mule’s Ears and Aspen Groves” in Tahoe Donner Magazine (July 2022)
“In early summer, I drop into Euer Valley, bright with mule’s ear flowers. The meadow dries to gold in fall. With a pack of bike camp kids in tow, ascending Mustang Sally for lupine and crimson snow plants is a top choice. If you follow our tracks, you might catch a glimpse of the shy bear who’s been sniffing around the willows up there.”
“How a Cowboy Brought Nordic Skiing to Tahoe” in Far West Nordic News (2022)
“Even on the coldest mornings when Tahoe Donner’s practice meadow glitters in the winter sun, you’ll see a lanky figure in red, striding. He makes it look effortless, though the classic tracks are slick with the glaze of refreezing. On storm mornings, too, when snow swallows the landscape, that red jacket is a beacon. It belongs to Glenn Jobe.”
“Making Snow in the Anthropocene” in Far West Nordic News (2022)
“Until a midwinter storm or two dumped enough feet to ensure a base, my patrol partners and I spent our afternoons patching what the California sun melted. We hauled tubs full of snow from shaded slopes and packed it onto thin spots where pebbles and dirt darkened the white. In the evening, the groomers pushed banks for later harvest.”
“On the Watch” in Dartmouth Alumni Magazine (May-June 2021)
“A light brown wisp, so faint I thought I imagined it, rose from thick pine and cedar a mile from Banner Mountain lookout, where I was stationed this past fire season. I peered through my binoculars. The plume could be smoke from an illegal brush pile, it could be dust, or it could be an actual vegetation fire.”
“In the Land of Heat and Smoke” in NMH Magazine (Spring 2021)
“When I saw the dark plume building northwest of the fire tower, I knew it signaled a shift. It was August in Northern California. I was on duty as the lookout on Wolf Mountain, waiting for the tinderbox landscape, dried by months of summer heat, to ignite.”
“Patrolling with Charlotte” in Tahoe Donner Magazine (March 2021)
“Once the upper trails are pink with alpenglow, it’s time to ski. With my patrol partner remaining at base, I skate out with a radio and pack of medical supplies to be a reassuring presence on the trails. I like to feel the quality and texture of the day’s snow.”
Accolades, etc.
Djerassi Resident Artist Program, Fall 2023
“Catching Light” shortlisted for the Aesthetica Creative Writing Award and published in Aesthetica Creative Writing Anthology 2022
“On Island” nominated by Salamander Magazine for the Pushcart Prize 2021
“Catching Light” named to The Masters Review Flash Fiction Contest shortlist judged by Stuart Dybek, 2021
Narrative 2020 30 Below Contest finalist for “Catching Light”
Awarded a 2020 Summer Teaching Assistant Fellowship by the University of New Hampshire
Awarded a 2020 Graduate Student Travel Grant by the University of New Hampshire
Grub Street Creative Writing Center’s Art of Suspense Contest winner, 2017
Dartmouth College English Department’s Grimes Prize for Creative Writing winner, 2016
Dartmouth College Tucker Center for Service’s Servant Leadership Essay Prize winner 2016