Sandy Nietling

Even in the rain the sassafras look like they're creating light
#autumn #leaves #sassafras #fallcolor

Watching the rain coming in from a rooftop restaurant in Birmingham

#photography #clouds #sky #nature

2025 winners of JJFNF selected The James Jones First Novel Fellowship has selected Emma Binder from Wisconsin, as the 2025 Fellow for their novel, Small Heaven. The first runner-up is Sandy Nietling of West Michigan for her…

Thrilled to be the first runner-up of the James Jones First Novel Fellowship! Set in the 1920s, BLACK RIVER is the rustic noir story of a woman searching for her missing, possibly murderous husband.
jamesjonesliterarysociety.org/2025/07/27/2...

Ruby-throated hummingbird visiting catmint. #Hummingbird #birds #birdwatching #nature

Volunteer foxgloves behind the house. I couldn't have grown them if I tried.
#foxglove #bloomscrolling #juneblooms

Happy bees and wild lupine.

#wildflowers #bee #nature #lupine #wildbluelupine

Found a pileated woodpecker's wing feather on my morning walk.

#birds #woodpecker #pileatedwoodpecker ##birdwatching #nature

Thank you, Rita! We'd be grateful for it and hope it helps bring attention to Lois's situation.

My husband started a Go Fund Me to help Lois replace her damaged windows. Unfortunate how all the powers that be claim to be helpless while her neighbor detonates explosives on a daily basis #fundraiser
gofund.me/df2a8751

Most of the crocuses were snipped by the deer, but there's still a little April color
#Flowers #Spring #Crocus #Deer

Hummingbird in Cambria
#photography #landscape #Cambria #California

A female white-breasted nuthatch. Most of my nuthatch pics are a blur, but this one held still just long enough.
#birds #birdwatching #nature

Congratulations, Tommy! Very exciting!

Bluejays with breakfast
#birds #birdwatching #nature

I wanted to save them for an upcoming flight, but I think I'm going to crack.

#writing #reading #books #authors #booksky #bookclub

I'm sorry but they're gutting the Dept of Education, rolling out plans for mass deportations--including sending migrants to Guantanamo--dismantling the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the NLRB, and the Atlantic's first issue of the Trump era is "How Progressives Froze the American Dream"?

A dark-eyed junco keeping a lookout
#birds #birdwatching #nature

i think it is important to say that the open and explicit racism of the president and the vice president isn’t just uncouth or “controversial” but a direct attack on tens of millions of americans and a dereliction of their duty to represent the entire country

Winter sunrise

Tufted titmouse up close with a chickadee shadow
#birds #birdwatching #nature

Tufted titmouse
#birds #birdwatching #nature

A northern flicker up close
#birds #birdwatching #nature

Chickadees are the friendliest birds in my backyard.
#birds #birdwatching #nature

Thank you to the editors at Blackbird for this Pushcart Prize nomination, and congratulations to my fellow Blackbird nominees!

blackbird.vcu.edu/youre-the-ne...
#PushcartPrize #Pushcart #fiction #writing #writingcommunity

Cardinalis cardinalis
#birds #birdwatching #nature

Yes, please!

I love truth in naming. Please meet the red-bellied woodpecker.
#birds #birdwatching #woodpecker #nature

Also see: Kyle Rittenhouse.

Red-winged Blackbird sitting on the tip of a cattail singing. A trail of his breath showing from the cold weather.

Red-winged Blackbird - When it's cold enough for the melody to show #birds #birdphotography #photography #nature

From @natalieshapero.bsky.social's book, Hard Child: bookshop.org/a/862/978155...

#poem #poetry #natalieshapero #writers #books