Popular Science Writing
What’s Going on with the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker?, Slate, 05.27.23,https://slate.com/technology/2023/05/ivory-billed-woodpecker-debate-extinct-evidence-lawns.html
S’more (a history of the three components of the S’more, which were all incidentally health foods at one point), The Inquisitive Eater, New School Food, 07.05.23, https://inquisitiveeater.com/2024/07/05/smore-by-brett-ortler/
Narrative Essays
1-UP, The Fanzine, 09.11.18, http://thefanzine.com/1-up/
A Simple Stretch of Highway, The Fanzine, 09.07.17 http://thefanzine.com/a-simple-stretch-of-highway/
(Not) Cutting It, The Fanzine, 02.06.17, http://thefanzine.com/not-cutting-it/
The Problem with Cuckoo Clock Country: Germany, Dachau and Genocide, The Nervous Breakdown, 12.15.13, http://thenervousbreakdown.com/bortler/2013/12/the-problem-with-cuckoo-clock-country-germany-dachau-and-genocide/
Surviving My Wife’s Miscarriage, Salon, 02.05.13, https://www.salon.com/2013/02/05/surviving_my_wifes_miscarriage/
Poetry
Explaining Extinction to My Son, North Dakota Quarterly 88.1/2.
What the Dead Tell Us About Mycology, The Toadstool Review, Vol. 49, No. 3.
What the Dead Tell Us About the Road Back to the Living, The Lake.
What the Dead Tell Us About a Chicken with Its Head Cut Off, Atticus Review
Disappearance in Flight, The Fanzine
The Museum of the Lost, Revolver
What the Dead Tell Us About the Other World, Revolver
At Orientation, Revolver
What the Dead Tell Us About Bookies, Gambling, and Betting in the Afterlife, Redactions, Issue 15
Cupid in Old Age, Red Weather
Lake Effect, Ascent
Prescribed Burn, Nimrod International Literary Journal
The Cave of Swallows and What The Abandoned Houses of North Dakota Can Tell Us About Adultery, The South Dakota Review
What the Dead Tell Us About Heaven and Hell, Lake Effect, Spring 2010
Adam and Eve and the First Tornado, Permafrost, Summer 2009
What the Dead Tell Us About Charon, Ferryman of the Dead, Rattle, December 14, 2009
Photographs
BBC Earth. “The ten sexiest male birds.” Dark-eyed Junco. Website updated; original article here.
Times of Israel. “As Hard As It May Seem, A Hat Made Out of Mushrooms.” Shelf Mushroom.
Ontario Nature Magazine. Butterfly and Moth Guide. Eastern tent caterpillar moth.
Abbott’s Sphinx, Know Your Insects, www.knowyourinsects.
One-Eyed Sphinx, Know Your Insects, www.knowyourinsects.
Modest Sphinx, Know Your Insects, www.knowyourinsects.
Nessus Sphinx, Know Your Insects, www.knowyourinsects.
Birds of Pennsylvania, Student Writing Project at Penn State New Kensington. American Goldfinch.
City Pages. “Star Tribune columnist Jim Souhan and the art of phoning it in.” Target Field.
Nevins, M., J. Duncan, A. Kosiba, J. Truong, R. Stern and J. Pontius (Eds.) 2018. The Forest Ecosystem Monitoring Cooperative Long-Term Monitoring Update http://doi.org/10.18125/vt2018. Paper Birch.
Parenting, Humor and Commentary
My parenting writing on Fatherly.
My parenting writing on Scary Mommy.