2024

  • May – Brave the Wild River makes the shortlist for the Reading the West awards. Vote through May 31. 
  • March – Maddie Woda writes in the Pinch of Dirt blog about how Brave the Wild River inspired her to take a botany class: “Reading about Clover and Jotter’s momentous achievement nudged me to step further into the unknown.” 
  • March – I’m honored with a Viola Award from Creative Flagstaff for “Excellence in Storytelling.”
  • March – One Book Yuma chooses Brave the Wild River, featured by the Yuma Sun and KAWC
  • February – Pima County Public Library selects Brave the Wild River as a Top Pick for the 2024 Southwest Books of the Year. Reviewer Mark Athiatakis calls it “a fine Western adventure tale, lush with exquisite descriptions of the Grand Canyon.” 
  • February – Brave the Wild River is longlisted for the Reading the West book awards.
  • January – Read Her Like an Open Book names Brave the Wild River on a list of favorite 2023 books. 

2023

  • December – The Last Word on Nothing includes Brave the Wild River on its end-of-the-year recommendation list; Craig Childs says: “It’s a rollicking story, and the kind of gender bend needed as much in 1938 as it is now.”
  • December – Sarah Boon puts Brave the Wild River on her list of Ten Best Books Read in 2023, saying, “Sevigny’s writing is poetic and compelling—this is a book you’ll want to keep reading way past your bedtime.” 
  • December – The San Francisco Chronicle names Brave the Wild River a favorite book of 2023.
  • December – Cara Santa Maria interviews me for the Talk Nerdy podcast.
  • December – Carina Julig discusses Brave the Wild River for Pasatiempo, in “A tail of two trailblazers.”
  • December – ALA Booklist chooses Brave the Wild River as their “Top of the List” for Adult Nonfiction. 
  • November – Lale Arikoglu interviews me for the Women Who Travel podcast.
  • November – The New Yorker’s Best Books of 2023 list names Brave the Wild River.
  • November – Interview about Brave the Wild River by KEUR’s RadioWest. 
  • November – Brave the Wild River appears on holiday gift guides for the Arizona Daily Star and the Highlands Current.
  • November – Brave the Wild River wins the 2023 National Outdoor Book Award for History/Biography.
  • November – Brave the Wild River appears on the longlist for the 2024 Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction.
  • November – I’m honored with the Copper Quill Award from the Flagstaff City-Coconino County Public Library.
  • October – William Richter reviews Brave the Wild River for The Mercury
  • October – Bonnie Stevens discusses Brave the Wild River in Flagstaff Business News: “Through her captivating storytelling skills, Sevigny allows us to vicariously dip our toes into the mighty Colorado while immersing us in a time that was really quite limiting for girls and women.” 
  • October – High Country News readers vote for Brave the Wild River among their top five favorite books.
  • September – Brave the Wild River featured on BYU’s podcast Constant Wonder.
  • September – Out West Books names Brave the Wild River on its list of conservation titles in the Colorado Sun.
  • September – Rebecca Lawton reviews Brave the Wild River for Boatman’s Quarterly Review, saying, “Sevigny’s long-overdue portrait of the first botanists to scientifically classify Grand Canyon flora both grips and informs us…. [L]ike any good trip down the challenging, deeply beloved Colorado, Brave the Wild River invites us to return again and again.”
  • September -Jessie King interviews me for WAMC’s program 51%, about women who break new ground.
  • September – Mark Lynch interviews me for WICN, calling Brave the Wild River “an amazing story about persistence in the face of insanity.”
  • September – Tsunami Rangers reviews Brave the Wild River. 
  • September – Sheryn Morris reviews Brave the Wild River for the Los Angeles Public Library.
  • August – The New Yorker reviews Brave the Wild River
  • August – Brave the Wild River featured in USA Today profile of Bright Side Bookshop as a book they can’t keep on the shelves.
  • August – I speak with Cody Half-Moon of Lowell Observatory about science communication and sexism in STEM on the Star Stuff podcast. Find it on YouTube, Spotify, or Apple Podcasts. 
  • August – Christie Aschwanden and Rosemary Wahtola Trommer interview me on the Emerging Form podcast about writing craft and how stories sometimes take you in unexpected directions. 
  • August – KPCW features me on This Green Earth.
  • August – Kate Carpenter interviews me about writing compelling historical narrative the Drafting the Past podcast. 
  • July – Joe Donahue interviews me for WAMC Northeast Public Radio. 
  • July – Tom Williams interviews me for Access Utah.
  • July – Shepherd.com publishes my list of 5 books about women in science whose names everyone should know.
  • July – Booklist features Brave the Wild River as one of 10 Best Biographies of the Year.
  • July – Read Science! live interview with Joanne and Jeff
  • July – Moira Gunn interviews me for Tech Nation: “The Science of Botany is Not For the Timid.”
  • July – Geri Lipschultz reviews Brave the Wild River in Terrain.org: “This is a brilliant and elegantly written book.” 
  • July – John Miles of National Parks Traveler reviews Brave the Wild River: “Sevigny gives [Clover and Jotter’s] journey the attention it deserves. She brings the expertise of a science writer to a story partly about science and the challenges of women’s place in it…” 
  • July – Benita Lee of KGNU interviews me about Brave the Wild River.
  • July – Steven Law of the Lake Powell Chronicle writes Brave the Wild River.
  • June – I’m featured in “Humans of NAU.”
  • June – Brave the Wild River is featured in the June 23 print issue of The Week.
  • June – Brave the Wild River is named on “Summer Reads 2023” by Princeton University. 
  • June – Brave the Wild River appears on Stanford’s list of “summer reading to fuel curiosity and conversation about sustainability.”  
  • June – Mary L. Holden reviews Brave the Wild River for the Los Angeles Review of Books: “When the narrative rapids slow, Sevigny leaves space to further speculate about the era, the people, the river, and the environment.” 
  • June – Brave the Wild River is selected as an Editor’s Choice by the New York Times: “9 New Books We Recommend This Week.”  
  • June – Crested Butte bookstore owner Arvin Ramgoolam names Brave the Wild River as one of “five books that break the mold” in this story by Colorado Public Radio. 
  • June – I’m interviewed on the Science for the People podcast. 
  • June – Lansing State Journal includes Brave the Wild River on their list of “hot summer reads.” 
  • June – Brave the Wild River makes the American Booksellers Association’s weekly Regional Indie Bestsellers List for the Mountains & Plains Region, and also Amazon’s “Best Biographies & Memoirs of 2023 So Far.”
  • June – Atlas Obscura names Brave the Wild River in “7 Books to Inspire Your Next Nature Adventure.” 
  • June – Nature names Brave the Wild River as one of five best picks for science books. 
  • June – Kirkus lists Brave the Wild River in “10 Nonfiction Books to Broaden Your Summer Reading.” 
  • June – Brianne Kane interviews me for Scientific American.
  • June – Kevin Schindler covers Brave the Wild River in Flagstaff Business News.
  • June – Taya Jae interviews me for KVNF’s show “The Pen and the Sword.”
  • June – Ann Fabian reviews Brave the Wild River for The National Book Review, calling it an “artful account.”
  • May – Margy Dudley interviews me for the KDUR’s Four Corners Arts Forum, available on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
  • May – Sarah Dunn publishes a Q&A with me for Atlas Obscura.
  • May – People magazine features Brave the Wild River in their May 29 issue: “The use of archival letters and diaries lends the tale a gripping you-are-there vibe.”
  • May – Anne Bogel discusses Brave the Wild River on episode 381 of the Modern Mrs. Darcy podcast: “I don’t think you’ve read anything like this, because nothing quite like this exists.”
  • May – Literary Hub’s Book Marks names Brave the Wild River as one of the best reviewed books of the week.
  • May – Arab News reviews Brave the Wild River.
  • May – Holly Lammert interviews me for Moab Sun News. 
  • May – Bree Burkitt at KNAU interviews me about Brave the Wild River.
  • May – Interview about my writing process in Famous Writing Routines
  • May – Joan Meiners reviews Brave the Wild River for The Arizona Republic: “It’s a story so relevant to modern discussions about water resources, climate change, science, sexism and the impacts of recreation as to likely feel shocking to many readers that they have not heard much about these trailblazers before.” 
  • May – I’m featured in the National Association of Science Writer’s Advance Copy: Backstories on books by NASW members.
  • May – Mark Brodie interviews me for KJZZ about Brave the Wild River.
  • May – Deborah Blum reviews Brave the Wild River for The New York Times, calling it a “cascade of a story, colored by sun and water and driven by courage and determination.”
  • May – Anita Snow reviews Brave the Wild River for Associated Press, saying “it pays homage to a pair of scientists far ahead of their time.”
  • May – Brenden Resnick interviews me for the Writing Westward podcast.
  • May 23 – Brave the Wild River is published.
  • May – Jeva Lange interviews me for Heatmap, calling Brave the Wild River “a rollicking, keep-you-up-at-night adventure story, told in utterly enveloping and immediate prose.”
  • May – Barbara J. King reviews Brave the Wild River for Science magazine, saying: “A page-turner in the adventure genre that also conveys rich detail about plant ecology of the US Southwest, sexism in science, and ethical issues in environmental science, the book is a marvelous and informative read.”
  • May – Sarah Boon interviews me for Orion Magazine about the overarching themes in Brave the Wild River.
  • May – Sarah Boon interviews me for Hippocampus about the craft behind the story in Brave the Wild River.
  • May – Rebecca Lawton interviews me about Brave the Wild River for Terrain.org – we discuss poetry, plants, and rattlesnakes! 
  • May – Peter Fish reviews Brave the Wild River in the San Francisco Chronicle: “Thrilling, expertly paced, warmhearted, it’s at once an adventure tale and a dual biography of two unusually determined, capable heroines.”
  • May – Adin Dobkin interviews me on Sources Cited about the archival object that inspired Brave the Wild River.
  • May – I receive two regional Edward R. Murrow awards for Excellence in Writing (“Apache elders fight to save the vanishing Emory oak“) and Excellence in Innovation (“NASA sets its sights on the moon“).
  • May – BookRiot names Brave the Wild River in “8 New Nonfiction Books to Read In May,” calling it “an immersive, informative read.”
  • May – The Explorers Journal reviews Brave the Wild River, saying it’s “full of the tribulations of river travel–avalanches, wild rapids, runaway boats, log jams, desertions, storms, lost gear, rising waters–but through it all runs the story of the collection of plants.”
  • May – High County News publishes an excerpt of Brave the Wild River, called “Tenacious Specimens.“
  • May – Inside Hook names Brave the Wild River in “The 10 Books You Should Be Reading This May.”
  • April – “Melissa Sevigny uncovers the miraculous journeys of Elzada Clover and Lois Jotter in ‘Brave the Wild River’,” Arizona Daily Sun
  • April – The Archive mentions Brave the Wild River in “8 Exciting New History Books to Usher in Spring 2023.”
  • April – Booklist gives Brave the Wild River a starred review: “A spellbinding writer of informed and ardent attentiveness, wit, and empathy, Sevigny splendidly conveys the dramatic beauty of this unique riverscape and casts light on the Indigenous people who cultivated plants in the canyonlands for millennia before being forced off the land.”
  • March – Kirkus gives Brave the Wild River a starred review, calling it “a beautiful tribute to two pioneering women of science.”
  • March – Publisher’s Weekly gives Brave the Wild River a starred review: “Sevigny recreates their expedition in novelistic detail, producing a narrative as propulsive as the current of the Colorado. Readers will be swept away.”
  • February – I moderate a Q&A with Dr. Alan Stern about the future of NASA’s New Horizons mission for Lowell Observatory’s I Heart Pluto Festival. Watch it here.
  • February – I’m featured in this article on women in science in The NAU Review

2022

  • December – Christie Aschwanden gives a shout-out to Brave the Wild River, calling it her favorite nonfiction books of 2022 in her blog post on The Last Word on Nothing, saying, “Sevigny makes Clover and Jotter come alive and will make plant lovers out of any reader.”
  • May – My KNAU story about fishing for exotic brown trout in the Colorado River won two regional Edward R. Murrow Awards for Excellence in Writing and Sports Reporting. (See all the Region 3 winners here).

2021

  • October – I’m featured in Carolyn Wilke’s story “Reporting Unsung Histories of Science,” for The Open Notebook
  • September – “The Price of Cherries” is listed as a notable essay in this year’s edition of Best American Science & Nature Writing.
  • August – Antonia Malchik, author of The Walking Life, plugs Mythical River in this episode of the Mountain & Prairie podcast with Ed Roberson
  • April – Comedians Dave Anthony and Gareth Reynolds at The Dollop have their own hilarious take on my article in the Atavist about two botanists who rafted the Colorado River in 1938. Listen here.
  • April – Rebecca Lawton features me on her list of women nature writers, with a shout-out to my forthcoming book on Elzada Clover and Lois Jotter.
  • January – Julia Hull interviews me for an episode of her podcast, “WTF, Biology?” We discuss science writing and the legacy of Rachel Carson.

2020

  • IMG_3525December – I’m featured in DJ Lee’s “witness ~ wilderness” newsletter, along with yarn artist Sarah Swett. You can subscribe to the newsletter at the bottom of the page.
  • October – A nice shout-out from Antonia Malchik in her Oct. 27 blog post for “The Wild Ones” in The Atavist Magazine
  • October – “The Wild Ones” in The Atavist Magazine receives the gold prize for adventure travel writing in the Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism Competition, hosted by the Society for American Travel Writers
  • October – Book deal announcement: Science journalist Melissa Sevigny’s BRAVE THE WILD RIVER, sold to Matt Weiland at Norton, at auction, by Laurie Abkemeier at DeFiore and Company (world English).
  • June – COVID-19 Seattle Podcast, “Is It Safe To Reopen?“
  • February – KJZZ interview, “Navajo Nation Homes Getting Addresses Thanks To Google Project.”
  • January – Science Friday features my story on Biosphere 2’s rainforest research

2019

2018

2017

  • DSCN5037Fall 2017 – Western American Literature reviews Mythical River (print only). Reviewer Hal Crimmel writes that “the author’s gift for storytelling, her delightful turns of phrase, well- researched histories, and updates to ongoing controversies make the book a most enjoyable, worthwhile, and— not least of all— hopeful read.”
  • July/August 2017 – Edible Baja Arizona reviews Mythical River. Reviewer Marguerite Happe says that “Sevigny’s deeply rooted love for the Sonoran Desert pulses through every page … Her prose is abundantly graceful.”
  • June 18, 2017 – C-SPAN Book TV aired this interview about Under Desert Skies
  • May 2017 – Arizona Daily Sun names Mythical River as a summer read
  • March 2017 – Review of Mythical River published in Natural Resources Journal
  • February 2017 – Mythical River named a “Nature Book of Uncommon Merit” and medal finalist by the John Burroughs Association.
  • January 5, 2017 – Mythical River nominated for a Viola Award for Excellence in Storytelling by the Flagstaff Arts Council.
  • January 4, 2017 – I discuss science and writing on the Bill Buckmaster Show.
  • January, 2017 – I’m awarded a 2017 Artist Research and Development Grant, and the Bill Desmond Writing Award, to support work on my next book project.

2016

2015

2014

Video: Under Desert Skies