Welcome! I’m a journalist and nature educator in Portland, Oregon.

I write a blog about urban foraging — employing wild plants of the city as food and medicine — at www.FirstWays.com and I am writing my first book at the moment for Globe Pequot Press. Previously, my journalistic work has appeared in The Oregonian, Orion magazine, DiscoveryChannel.com, RealitySandwich.com.

I have been interviewed about foraging in The Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, on ABC News, in Ad Busters, Utne Reader, Portland Tribune and much more. I teach classes on wild plants in Portland; I have given presentations on foraging and led plant identification tours for TrackersNW, ReWild Eugene, Portland Plant Medicine Gathering, Portland Community College and more.

Thanks for stopping by. You’ll find clips of my reporting work for newspapers across the country, both feature writing and news, in the tabs above. Scroll down to see a list of publications I have written for below, along with my resume. You can learn more about me on my blog’s About page.

Magazines, Print & Web

• DiscoveryChannel.com – web site for science TV channel
• Orion Magazine – national nature/culture magazine, Great Barrington, MA
• Reality Sandwich – online alt consciousness magazine

Newspapers

• Asbury Park Press – daily newspaper, Asbury Park, NJ
• Courier News - daily newspaper, Bridgewater, NJ
• Courier Post - daily newspaper, Cherry Hill, NJ
• Daily Record - daily newspaper, Vineland, NJ
• Home News Tribune - daily newspaper, East Brunswick, NJ
• The Ithaca Journal – daily newspaper, Ithaca, NY
• Ithaca Times – alternative weekly newspaper, Ithaca, NY
• The Oregonian – award-winning daily, Portland, OR
• Syracuse New Times – alternative weekly newspaper, Syracuse, NY

Education

• M.F.A. in Creative Nonfiction Writing at Goucher College, 2010 – 2012 (in progress)
• B.A. in Philosophy, with minor in Anthropology, at Rutgers University, 2005

Wilderness Skills

• Portland Metro’s Nature University, spring 2011
• Northwest Herb Fest conference, 2009
• Echoes In Time primitive skills conference, 2009
• Primitive Pursuits, nine-month apprenticeship in wilderness skills, Ithaca, NY, 2007-08

Special Projects

Check out my investigative report on the grisly effects of manure fumes on neighbors of the largest dairy farm in New York state. The story stirred up a firestorm of letters from the dairy industry, environmentalists and Finger Lakes residents, filling the opinion pages of the Ithaca Times for three months straight.

Wild Food Challenge: I lived on weeds and other wild plants within Portland, OR, in May and November 2009. I wrote about the project for a peak-oil web site called CultureChange.org. You can see my daily record of the adventure, and what I learned about sustainability and survival, here.

Background

I got my start as an intern at Rolling Stone magazine and then as a news reporter and copy editor for The Home News Tribune, a daily in New Jersey. I’ve been freelancing (happily) ever since.

Contact: RebeccaELerner[at]gmail.com

*Note: Photo by www.saragrayphotography.com/

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