I grew up in a family that moved around constantly, thanks to a healthy dose of wanderlust.

But most of my life was spent in the San Juan Islands in the Salish Sea. It felt like home, so we kept coming back to our little island in the north.

It was here that I learned what it meant to be tethered to a place; it was here that I started seriously writing about nature, the terrains that raised us, and place-based stories.

A lot of my childhood was spent in a little cottage by the sea on our little island. It was filled with dried lavender bunches, yellow walls, and jars of sea glass.

We grew our own garden, picked basketfuls of wild blackberries, and were constantly playing in the icy waters and lush forests along the shore. When I think of the word “home”, that is still what floods my mind all these years later.

While many of the places I grew up exploring inspire my work, these memories in the Salish Sea are my foundation as a writer.

I still write about place, telling stories about the terrains that raised us and the landscapes we’re losing in the face of ecological catastrophe, climate injustice, and the practice of othering. I weave nature, eco-feminism, interconnection, and culture together, often dipping into folklore and myth to tell the truth: the climate crisis is an identity crisis.

I am the author of “Warmly, The Wild,” a full-length eco-poetry collection that questions established ideas of wildness, explores North Americans’ sense of place, and unfolds as a love letter to nature, from nature. I’m also the 2026-2027 Writer in Residence at the Seattle Public Library in the Pacific Northwest’s UNESCO City of Literature, where I’m completing my first climate-fiction novel. I’m a Best of the Net nominee, and my essays, poems, flash fiction pieces, and artwork have been published in dozens of journals around the world, including About Place Journal x Black Earth Institute, Lunch Ticket, and Stonecrop Magazine. I’m also a published landscape painter, photographer, and nature artist.

Want to read my work?

Dig into the stories in Blinter Magazine, an eco-publication that I founded and run. We cover all things People + Planet through place-based stories that inspire readers to see the world and care about the state of it.

Find my poetry, essays, and fiction in these publications:

About Place Journal x Black Earth Institute

Lunch Ticket

Stonecrop Magazine

Brick Street Poetry x Reconnecting to Our Waterways (ROW)

Coffin Bell Journal (Best of the Net Award nominee)

Capsule Stories (available at Barnes and Noble)

For Women Who Roar

Coffee People Zine x Glitter Cat Barista Bootcamp x Pacific Foods

Salmon Creek Journal

Beyond Queer Words Magazine

On Concepts Edge

Great Lakes Review

Tipton Poetry Journal

Paddock Review

“Warmly, The Wild” is out now internationally

Learn more

Warmly, The Wild, out now from Finishing Line Press, is a love letter to nature, from nature. Written over the course of many years spent outside across North America, the collection reflects on humankind’s ideas about wildness, sense of place, and relationship with the climate crisis. Centered on interconnection, the poems conjure up visions of parking lot trees harboring just as much “nature” as protected National Parks, hickory tree history along the Roanoke River, Salish Sea summers losing their distinctive cool air, mountaintop removal in Appalachia, Red Winged Blackbird calls, forests welcoming grief, pink skies above burning Canadian coastlines, magenta-stained fingers picking blackberries, ancient seas in Utahn canyons, bonfires as an ancestral ritual, and breathing pavement in New York City. The poetry delves into the terrains that raised us and the way that a sense of place defines who we end up becoming. Warmly, The Wild, at its core, is a meditation on the tether between humankind and nature, which, in the end, are the same.

It’s also filled with original art of the landscapes that inspired the book, painted by me. View a few of the included pieces below:

Interviews

The Anacortes American, 2025

Roanoke Review, 2023

Go Skagit, 2008 (when I was a kid, my artwork was selected to be featured on the town’s recycling trucks)

Credentials

Climate Justice & Intersectionality Focus
-Deep research conducted on science communication, land ethics, indigenous nature writing and TEK, animal ethology, queer ecology, artivism, and eco-religious studies
-Winner of the Environmental Studies Outstanding Student in Environmental Justice and Culture
-Winner of the Senior Achievement Award
Gender & Women’s Studies CONC
-Deep research conducted on eco-literature, Nordic folklore, women in film, literature of the sea, depictions of terrain in American Southern Literature, and speculative fiction
-Co-established the first Roanoke College Publishing CONC program
-Collaborated with the English and Environmental departments to organize eco-literature readings on-campus
-Member of the Sigma Tau Delta English Honors Society
-Winner of the Fellows Finalist Award
-Winner of the Bowman Scholarship
-Winner of the Diuguid-Spencer Memorial Scholarship
-Multi-time Winner of the Dean’s Award
Depictions of Nature Focus
-Core artistic eras: Ancient Egyptian, Viking, and Medieval eras
-Deep research conducted on Ancient Egyptian: nature symbolism, botanical works, depictions of water, and gender representation in art
-Deep research conducted on Viking: nature symbolism, mobility in art, depictions of myth and eco-spirituality, runic art, and tapestry as storytelling
-Deep research conducted on Medieval: earth-derived artistic materials, nature symbolism in illuminated manuscripts, biophilic architecture, and sacred spaces and the environment (how landscape and nature played a role in the intended experience of religious architecture).
‍-Winner of the Museum Education Competition in Ancient Egyptian Art
Completed the by-invitation training at Bard College, led by directors of the Graduate Programs in Sustainability. Meant to fuel high-impact sustainability careers that can change the future in policy, business, NGOs, education, and politics, training focuses on these key leadership skills: vision, courage, developing your network, telling your story, and raising funds.

I was selected to participate in the Vision and Telling Your Story cohorts. With other selected fellows and cohort leaders, I completed a series of intensive skills-based workshops that focused on effective environmental storytelling strategies. Accessible language, artivism, and environmental creativity were among the topics covered.
Accepted into the 2026 CCN Climate Newsroom Cohort, led by CCN’s top editorial professionals.

The program trained cohort members on three core pillars:
- Local Climate Stories That Matter: Effective climate journalism techniques, including solutions-based coverage, to ensure stories resonate with local and international audiences.
- How to Make the Climate Connection: Attribution science and how to apply it to stories across any beat, using clear and accessible language for all audiences.
- Climate Stories for Every Beat and Platform: How climate change affects everyday life (from extreme weather to health, jobs, the economy, and politics), and how to integrate these angles into reporting, find experts and resources to strengthen coverage, and identify and debunk climate disinformation.
Earning this certificate included conducting advanced spatial analysis, building 2D & 3D environments, creating geodatabases, and doing deep environmental research. StoryMaps are a specialty of mine.
Credentials
-The Council for Professional Recognition: Child Development Associate (CDA)
-Teachstone: Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS)
-Successful Solutions Training in Child Development: Child Care Basics
-Tralient: Preventing Workplace Harassment
-American Red Cross: CPR, Pediatric CPR, & Emergency First Aid

Select Volunteer Work
-LEAP Roanoke: Community Gardener and Food Accessibility Advocate
-Appalachian Trail Conservancy: Tree Phenology Surveyor
-Roanoke College Dining Services: Green Spokesperson (established vegan menu items in collaboration with the chefs)
-Roanoke College Alumni Program: Nature Education Workshop Leader
-Cities of Caraguatatuba, Gleba, and Praia Ocian: English Teacher & Community Volunteer

Get in touch to inquire about my seven years of teaching experience and 10 years of community engagement at emirisdegn@gmail.com
I was invited to be part of "The Revolution Generation," a documentary from Josh and Rebecca Tickell that explores the power of millennials in the face of climate change, gender injustice, and voting inequality. Filming took place in 2018. It's now available to stream on Amazon, Apple TV+, and beyond.

Winner – DOC LA 2021
Winner- Los Angeles International Film Festival

Narrated by Michelle Rodriguez; Starring Shailene Woodley, Corbin Bleu, Roza Calderon, Jay Ponti

Film description: "The number of Millennials in the United States — those born between approximately 1978 and 2000 — is near 80 million people. They’re the most diverse generation in America, with 56 percent of them registered as politically Independent … and every single one of them will be needed if the planet is to avoid climate catastrophe. In THE REVOLUTION GENERATION, filmmakers Josh Tickell and Rebecca Tickell (whose previous films Fuel, Pump, and Kiss the Ground have examined oil, capitalism, and a regenerative way forward for the earth) spotlight a generation that has been mischaracterized, mislabeled, and mistakenly mocked. Through interviews and highlighting a theory by authors/generational demographists Neil Howe and William Strauss that history can be viewed as a series of 80-year cycles — and within that, into four “seasons” that bring with them profound societal changes — the film shows the impact of the WWII Generation, Baby Boomers, and Gen X. But Millennials occupy a special spot: They’re creators of social tech and native digital users, are anti-corporate crusaders, are more empathetic that any previous group … and they now have to secure voting rights, equality, and the safety of the planet itself. Can they do it? A kinetic, perceptive documentary of a generation and why they are who they are, THE REVOLUTION GENERATION is also, as Josh Tickell says, 'A how-to manual for saving the earth.'"
Celebrity Eco Activist and Drag Queen, Pattie Gonia
Apr 2021
PATTIE GONIA is an intersectional environmentalist, drag queen, educator, and social media celebrity. They have been featured in Conde Nast, REI, Outside Online, Backpacker, BBC, Vogue, Sierra Club, The Guardian, Teva, and many other platforms. The trail is their runway, and Pattie is bringing diversity and inclusivity to the outdoors through their art, collaborations, and comedy sketches. They have become an icon for the queer environmentalist community, and their videos about the way Mother Nature is treated and litter-made fashion has captured the hearts of those all over the world.

Celebrity TV Host, Phil Torres
Mar 2021
Phil Torres has been bitten by an anaconda, tackled a tiger shark, and gotten lost in a forest full of quicksand... all in the name of science. He lived in the Amazon Rainforest for two years and has done research and covered science stories in Mongolia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru, Cambodia, Sweden, Brazil, the Arctic, the bottom of the ocean, and the Bahamas, to name a few.

With a degree in Entomology and Biology from Cornell University, he lead conservation and education projects in the Amazon Rainforest for two years before starting his career in television. His scientific research and discoveries have been featured in Wired, BBC, Animal Planet, ABC News, National Geographic, The Wall Street Journal, MSNBC, and more.

Phil currently hosts Expedition X on Discovery Channel, Ready, Set, Pet on The CW, and Big Metal Bird for United Airlines. He was the in-the-field live correspondent for PBS’s American Spring Live, hosted more than 70 episodes of science innovation show TechKnow on Al Jazeera, has been featured on Animal Planet, Discovery Channel, and Sesame Street.
Intersectional Environmentalist and Social Media Celebrity Mikaela Loach
May 2021
Mikaela Loach is a climate justice activist, the co-host of The Yikes Podcast, and a writer. She is the author of "It’s Not That Radical” and “Climate Is Just The Start.”
From September 2022 to April 2023, I served as the sole judge for Roanoke Review's first-ever International Eco-Poetry Contest. I worked closely with Editor-in-Chief Mary Hill to assist with announcements, interviews, and publicity on top of reviewing hundreds of entries from around the world. I designed promotional content and posters, and read through close to 1,000 entries from around the world.

I selected the winner, and filmed a video for all entrants for the publication to use in their announcement.