UNWON 2025: Year in Review
Thank you for being part of my first full year on Substack.
2025 was the first full year of UNWON on Substack, and it’s been quite a year. I launched in late October 2024 after years writing on another platform.
Here’s a look back.
Advocacy & Issues Facing the West
This time last year I wrote an open letter to President Trump and his incoming administration asking for attention on a number of important issues impacting the American West. Many of those issues have since been addressed by his team, including opening an investigation into the big four meatpackers, moving to do away with the Public Lands Rule, protecting landowners from predatory pipeline companies, ending the death tax, and taking action to protect legacy water systems threatened by environmental activism.
The impact UNWON has had far exceeded my expectations. The administration has followed up on UNWON’s reporting to intervene on behalf of farmers and ranchers and issues impacting the West—from the Maude family in South Dakota to the Henry family in New Jersey to the King family in Washington to the Potter Valley dam removals to California’s farmland reparations plan, and much more. All the credit is due to a federal administration—particularly at the USDA helmed by Secretary Brooke Rollins—that is connected to the people it serves and committed to hearing from grassroots journalists on these important and ignored issues.
Top Posts of 2025
The UNWON Podcast
In February, I launched the UNWON Podcast to provide new insights and stories from real America as well as to offer interviews related to important stories I’m covering. Most of my guests have never been on a podcast before. This podcast honors the voices we need to hear above the noise, the leaders we want to be influenced by in an era of self-proclaimed influencers; the keepers of land, providers and storytellers, mountain historians, hometown heroes and healers, local legends no one knows anymore because they aren’t in the algorithm or the For You Page or the expert class or the matrix. But we find ourselves in an age without wisdom, here.
Forestry with Craig Blencowe: Saving America's Forests
It was a real honor to speak with private forestry consultant Craig Blencowe, a leader in sustainable forest management. I asked Craig about timberland management, fire prevention, what’s changed in the American timber industry, spotted owls, bark beetles, what has gone wrong at the U.S. Forest Service, why we stopped salvaging lumber on public land aft…
Dam DISASTER with Theodora Johnson: Water, Wolves, and Ranching on the Klamath River
Theodora Johnson is a cattle rancher and mom of three, born, raised, and still ranching in Siskiyou County, California. She’s also an award-winning journalist; one of the few who covered the reality of the infamous Klamath Dam removals that California governor Gavin Newsom has touted as a major victory.
Grand Canyon Mules with Casey Murph: Keeping the West Alive
Casey Murph is a consummate Westerner, a man out of his time but here to remind us about the old ways and the things that still matter. For many years, he led the mule string at the Grand Canyon and now runs cattle on his family’s historic ranch in Navajo County, Arizona. He’s a regular writer for
Grazing with Nate Chisholm: From Kenya to Point Reyes
Nate Chisholm is a grazing ecologist and rancher currently based in Kenya, where he is studying the impact of megafauna on savanna grassland ecosystems. For years, he ranched in Marin and Sonoma counties, including Point Reyes. He has amassed a decade of scientific research on the impact of grazing in environments very similar to Point Reyes, where a gr…
Lastly, on a personal note…
My husband Nick and I are grateful to have welcomed our first child, Cade Nicholas Covello, on December 28. Don’t worry, I won’t leave you hanging. I have a series of posts to share with you and some important breaking pieces coming up soon.
Thank you for your support of this work, especially all the generous folks who pay to subscribe. It makes a tremendous difference in my ability to continue doing this important work. In our first full year on Substack we made the Bestsellers list and often topped the charts in the Climate & Environment category. That’s because of you. Thank you for supporting UNWON, an underdog journalism project focused on working, rural, and Western America. Without you, these stories don’t happen.
Here’s to 2026.
Love your reporting!
The American West is an iconic symbol to the world of our self-reliance and freedom. Western novels and movies related this spirit to far flung places across the globe and people responded! Thank you for bringing attention to the modern neglect of this exceptional region of the US. Your contribution to the revival reminds us that ONE person can make a difference! Congratulations to you and your husband on the birth of Cade!