Christopher Brown
@christopherbrown.bsky.social
Writer & lawyer. Author of A NATURAL HISTORY OF EMPTY LOTS • Novels TROPIC OF KANSAS et al • urban nature newsletter FIELD NOTES • christopherbrown.com
Best illustration (and quote!) so far in the vintage Lassie book my daughter and I picked up at the used bookstore the other day:
Truly awesome reporting. Would like see it get picked up by a major outlet, *everybody* should read it. People well-read in speculative fiction, as well as people versed in ecological nonfiction, will get how Brown’s expertise in both of those genres allows him to perfectly capture this landscape.
Jeff VanderMeer@jeffvandermeer.bsky.social · 2w agoan essential long read
an essential long read
Christopher Brown@christopherbrown.bsky.social · 2w agoField Notes from a July visit to SpaceX’s South Texas Starbase, where the launch gantries tower over one of our wildest coastal wildernesses, and the alligators bellow back when the rockets fire: fieldnotes.christopherbrown.com/p/rocket-sum...
A beautiful, bleak piece of writing.
Christopher Brown@christopherbrown.bsky.social · 2w agoField Notes from a July visit to SpaceX’s South Texas Starbase, where the launch gantries tower over one of our wildest coastal wildernesses, and the alligators bellow back when the rockets fire: fieldnotes.christopherbrown.com/p/rocket-sum...
Great dispatch from one of the oddest Zones on the planet
Christopher Brown@christopherbrown.bsky.social · 2w agoField Notes from a July visit to SpaceX’s South Texas Starbase, where the launch gantries tower over one of our wildest coastal wildernesses, and the alligators bellow back when the rockets fire: fieldnotes.christopherbrown.com/p/rocket-sum...
Field Notes from a July visit to SpaceX’s South Texas Starbase, where the launch gantries tower over one of our wildest coastal wildernesses, and the alligators bellow back when the rockets fire: fieldnotes.christopherbrown.com/p/rocket-sum...
Rocket Summer
No. 199
fieldnotes.christopherbrown.com
Delighted to get two reports this morning that A Natural History of Empty Lots is among the books on display at the Obama Presidential Center’s public library branch—thanks to Paloma G. for the proof! 🫡🙏
ATTN: AUSTIN Anyone missing this dog? Found in Highland this morning. Unsure if boy or girl, because such floof. Seems young, has clean teeth, is friendly and was very hungry.
Lawyer billboard of the day (Los Fresnos, Texas):
‘you might get a different idea who the real swarm is’ Field Notes by Chris Brown @christopherbrown.bsky.social open.substack.com/pub/edgeland...
Boat cloaks, dirty rivers, dead revolutionaries, and ghost swarms
No. 198 (Semiquincentennial edition)
open.substack.com
Some Semiquincentennial field notes from packrafting through the backwaters of my hometown, leafing through the papers of Sons of the American Revolution, and learning about the Midwestern locust plagues of the 1870s: fieldnotes.christopherbrown.com/p/boat-cloak...
Boat cloaks, dirty rivers, dead revolutionaries, and ghost swarms
No. 198 (Semiquincentennial edition)
fieldnotes.christopherbrown.com
The only sci-fi writer who got everything right was JG Ballard
Jordan Uhl@jordanuhl.com · last mo.Trump is watching the Fox News feed of himself watching Fox News
I had a great weekend at the Writers' League of Texas Agents & Editors Conference where I moderated a panel on Saturday and was on panel Sunday. So thankful to share the stage with these great writers and I bought all of their books! Can't wait to dive into these great books!
Pitbulls, killdeers and clankers, oh my!
Christopher Brown@christopherbrown.bsky.social · 2mo agoThe solstice lands harder in Texas. Some notes from its long wind-up this year, a pair of vignettes from research trips to Silicon Valley and industrial Houston, and some great new summer reading in this week's Field Notes: fieldnotes.christopherbrown.com/p/lacewings-...
"...he knows the difference between offering something that is vague and something that is incomplete." Was pleased to see this fresh consideration of Mike's work, including the newest, in the June 12 TLS, my subscriber copy of which just made it to Texas:
Nick Holdstock@nickholdstock.bsky.social · 2mo agoI wrote about the great M John Harrison for @thetls.bsky.social www.the-tls.com/literature/f...
The solstice lands harder in Texas. Some notes from its long wind-up this year, a pair of vignettes from research trips to Silicon Valley and industrial Houston, and some great new summer reading in this week's Field Notes: fieldnotes.christopherbrown.com/p/lacewings-...
Lacewings, Pit Bulls, Killdeers & Clankers
No. 197
fieldnotes.christopherbrown.com
My first professional biology job was as a bio tech at Don Edwards NWR doing radiotelemetry & nest searches for clapper rails. We got all over those salt ponds & the remnants of salt marsh that fringe them. Still counts as one of the trippiest places I’ve ever explored (& that’s saying something)
Christopher Brown@christopherbrown.bsky.social · 2mo agoWhat weird, beautiful, and dystopian waters—full of urban effluent and old landfill and also rich with life
Headed out to paddle the Houston Ship Channel tomorrow; thinking about my recent excursion into these salt flats opposite the Meta corporate hq
I am humbled & honored to be this year's recipient of the Texas Writer Award, presented "to an esteemed writer in recognition of outstanding contributions to Texas literature." Teenage me, living in housing & seeking refuge in libraries, never dreamed he'd be a conduit for his community's voice.
It might be too much and I’ve said this before but the sf novel that ‘feels’ most like now is Chris Brown’s Tropic of Kansas. the opening has a DMZ with Canada on the Minnesota border (formed BY CANADa) and a detention center in international falls inside of an abandoned strip mall
Am now in a state of permanent suspense about whether the agave will produce offspring.
Christopher Brown@christopherbrown.bsky.social · 2mo agoFrontage road monocots, power pole nest builders, and packrafting urban waterways, in this Blue Moon edition of Field Notes: fieldnotes.christopherbrown.com/p/american-d...
Frontage road monocots, power pole nest builders, and packrafting urban waterways, in this Blue Moon edition of Field Notes: fieldnotes.christopherbrown.com/p/american-d...
American Death Blooms
and Downtown Parakeet Condos (No. 196)
fieldnotes.christopherbrown.com
Great stuff in Mark’s always-excellent newsletter today 👇🤖
Mark Hurst@markhurst.bsky.social · 2mo ago"The time is coming when we’ll each have to declare our allegiance either to, or against, the Silicon Valley religion. This choice will be independent of whether we align ourselves with any traditional religion, or none at all..." New from me: buttondown.com/creativegood...
Amazing day yesterday paddling the salt flats of Silicon Valley, looking for signs of life in the shadows of the Meta corporate headquarters campus
“The prelapsarian aura that invests the memory of the expedition in popular culture can’t withstand much scrutiny.” Enjoyed reading @calebcrain.bsky.social’s incisive take on Lewis and Clark in @newyorker.com this morning, in an apt along the 1776 route of De Anza: www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...
Looking Back at Lewis and Clark
The explorers’ crossing of the continent is America’s most famous camping trip. What was it all for?
newyorker.com
