The Writer Files: Writing, Productivity, Creativity, and Neuroscience

How Award-Winning Climate Journalist Amy Westervelt Writes


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Bonus Episode – Climate Edition: Award-winning investigative journalist and Executive Podcast Producer, Amy Westervelt, spoke to me about her accidental career in climate accountability, the greatest threat to free speech, and her deep dive into the origins of climate denial.

Amy Westervelt is an independent investigative climate journalist who has been on the climate beat for more than 20 years, reporting for a wide range of outlets over the years, including Inside Climate News, The Guardian, The Nation, The Intercept, NPR, and many others.

She is the Executive Producer of the independent podcast production company Critical Frequency, and in 2021, she helped produce This Land S2—an investigative podcast revealing the forces behind efforts to unravel tribal sovereignty in the U.S.— nominated for a Peabody Award in April 2022. In 2020 she produced Unfinished: Short Creek with Stitcher which was named a best podcast of the year by The New Yorker and The Atlantic

She also hosted her award-winning climate podcast Drilled, a Critical Frequency original, and was most recently awarded Covering Climate Now's Journalist of the Year Award 2023, a global journalism collaboration co-founded by Columbia Journalism Review, The Nation, and others.

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In this file Amy Westervelt and I discussed:

  • Why journalists and protesters are being jailed for speaking out
  • How the early days of climate denialism set the tone for our current dilemma 
  • How to record a hit podcast in your car while your kids sleep
  • Why we need climate fiction storytellers now more than ever
  • And a lot more!
  • Show Notes:

    • Drilled.media
    • Amy Westervelt on Twitter
    • Kelton Reid on Twitter
    • Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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      The Writer Files: Writing, Productivity, Creativity, and NeuroscienceBy Kelton Reid

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