Bio

Is the author of Pushed: Miners, a Merhant, and (Maybe) a Massacre and several previous nonfiction books on nature, work, community, and civil rights, including Reclaimers, stories of elder women reclaiming sacred land and water, a finalist for the Rachel Carson Book Award from the Society of Environmental Journalists,the memoir/history Test Ride on the Sunnyland Bus: A Daughter’s Civil Rights Journey, winner of the River Teeth literary nonfiction prize, 100 Skills You’ll Need for the End of the World (as We Know It) a humor-infused exploration of how to live more lightly on the planet, and three essay collections, Uplake, Potluck and Now Go Home.

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Her first novel for young people, The Luckiest Scar on Earth, about a 14 year-old snowboarder and her activist father, appeared in 2017 and her first chapbook of poetry, Mile Marker Six appeared in 2021.

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Ana Maria’s work has been recognized by the Nautilus Book Awards, the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Awards, and as a four-time finalist for the Washington State Book Award. Her essays have appeared in dozens of publications including Orion, Ecotone, Fourth Genre, Creative Nonfiction, Brevity, The Normal School, and High Country News.

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After working fifteen years on backcountry trail crews for the National Park Service, she turned to teaching and is currently on faculty in the low-residency MFA programs at Antioch University, Los Angeles and Western Colorado University. She has also served as Johnston Visiting Professor at Whitman College, the William Kittredge Distinguished Writer-in-Residence at the University of Montana,  as Viebranz Visiting Professor of Creative Writing at St. Lawrence University, and currently at Wenatchee Valley College.

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When not traveling to teach, Ana Maria lives in Stehekin, Washington, a remote community in the North Cascades accessible only by foot or ferry. She and her wife, Laurie, who maintains the historic Buckner Orchard, married in 2012.