Nature Notebook - Naila Moreira

Clearstories in the wild

by nailaNature Notebook, Poetry, Science Tidbits October 31, 2025October 31, 2025No Comments

I’m catching up on some news for Clearstories, my photo/poetry project with photographer Stephen Petegorsky.

This fall, we exhibited our work at the Borgia Gallery at Elms College in Chicopee, MA. It’s always so striking to see this work on gallery walls. The photos just glow.

We were also proud to have our work published in the pages of the beautifully edited literary magazine Woven Tale Press, which featured three of the pairs: Fledgling, Ouroboros, and Flying Fish.

Below, you can read one of the poems, Flying Fish (click to expand). The magazine cover thumbnail at right links to the full magazine with the remaining poems.

Finally, here I am with one of my all time favorite pairings, Skate Fishing, originally published in Terrain.org. The poem was inspired by a fishing voyage I observed off the coast of Cape Cod, graciously hosted by commercial fisherman Doug Feeney of the F/V Noah and fisheries biologist Owen Nichols, Director of Marine Fisheries Research at the Center for Coastal Studies in Provincetown, MA.

Monarch release & reading, Cape Cod

by nailaEvents, KidLit, Nature Notebook July 10, 2025September 19, 2025No Comments

Update: See photos of this event on my Instagram Releasing a monarch butterfly is a magical experience. I’m always surprised how moving I find it every time, no matter how many butterflies I set free into the sky. Those tiny, featherlight feet tickling your palm. The monarch’s wings opening and closing, testing its newfound freedom. …

Book chats, book lists, and a year’s wrap-up

by nailaKidLit, Nature Notebook, Science Tidbits January 1, 2025February 8, 2025No Comments

It’s been a year! Here, on cue, comes 2025 with its round, comfortable numerals, as full as the world with both fears and hopes. I wish all well as we enter this second quadrant of the millennium. For a wrap-up, here are links to some blog posts and interviews from this year. The debut year …

Writing in the Woods

by nailaKidLit, Nature Notebook May 11, 2024May 11, 2024No Comments

I can’t write if I’m not roaming around… I love cafés and even bars, where I’m that oddball all alone with a notebook. I write outdoors a lot – I like to walk out to a local area of farm fields flanking the Connecticut River, just below the line of the Holyoke Range, then park …

Clearstories at R. Michelson Galleries

by nailaEvents, Nature Notebook, Poetry, Science Tidbits February 16, 2024May 11, 2024No Comments

Clearstories, my poetry/image collaboration with photographer Stephen Petegorsky, is showing at R. Michelson Galleries in Northampton, MA this month. The exhibition, which features 17 of the pairs, was written up in a fine article by Steve Pfarrar in the Daily Hampshire Gazette. We also were interviewed on WHMP’s Talk the Talk along with gallery manager …

A shallow, wide river with stony banks passes through thick forest in Shutesbury, Massachusetts on a rainy day.

The Forest and the Trees

by nailaNature Notebook, Nonfiction, Science Tidbits January 19, 2024February 2, 2024No Comments

My latest journalistic piece came out in The Shoestring last month. The piece explores the conflict between the need to produce green energy in Massachusetts, and the pressure of solar development on lands we’d prefer to conserve, like forests and farmlands. What happens when large-scale, for-profit solar threatens green space? Are the local citizens challenging …

Read more “The Forest and the Trees”

An art photo of the skeleton of a baby crocodile, by Stephen Petegorsky. The photo shows a yellow torso, greenish bones, and a patterned blue background that resembles ripples or mud.

Baby Crocodile in Scientific American

by nailaNature Notebook, Poetry, Science Tidbits January 3, 2024January 19, 2024No Comments

I was delighted to ring in the New Year with a published poem in the storied magazine Scientific American. The poem is part of my Clearstories collaboration with photographer Stephen Petegorsky. In “Baby Crocodile,” I drew on a memory of an encounter with a Florida alligator (a species of crocodilian). These reptiles seem cold and …

Monarchs of Winghaven, launching 2024

by nailaKidLit, Nature Notebook, Science Tidbits June 11, 2023January 28, 2024No Comments

My middle grade novel, The Monarchs of Winghaven, has a launch date! Sammie and Bram, my dauntless bird- and butterfly-watching protagonists, will meet the world on May 14, 2024. Illustrations by Naila Moreira, THE MONARCHS OF WINGHAVEN

Clearstories

by nailaNature Notebook, Poetry, Science Tidbits May 28, 2021July 8, 2023No Comments

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 …

Porcupine

by nailaNature Notebook, Poetry October 19, 2020July 8, 2023No Comments

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.