"Still moments like a foggy morning in the country feel like a knife’s edge. Sometimes the fog stays for days, and that is a long time to feel swallowed."
Read MoreLisa Laughlin
Writing about the Inland Northwest
Managing Editor | Copy Writer
M.F.A. in Creative Nonfiction
My work
Literary Essays
I write about the West. My essays have been published in Orion's "Place Where You Live" section, River Teeth, Flyway, High Desert Journal, Hippocampus Magazine, Belmont Story Review, Sweet: A Literary Confection, and elsewhere.
Out There Articles
I've written over 80 articles for Out There Outdoors magazine, an Inland Northwest outdoor recreation magazine. I have been the Managing Editor here since 2023. https://issuu.com/snyderzzz
Copy Writing
I work with DOMA Coffee Roasting Company's marketing team and artists to tell stories around coffee that end up on coffee bags, newsletters, blog posts, social media and more. https://www.domacoffee.com/
ABOUT
I'm a writer, editor, and mother, and pour my heart into each of those roles. My kids are young and my life is busy. I work as the managing editor of a quarterly print magazine and freelance in marketing. I love the literary, creative, and outdoors communities that I'm a part of in the Spokane region.
I am an avid trail runner and have only drawn blood one time so far while running. (I sprain my ankle more often.) I also like backpacking in the Cascades and paddle boarding on our local lakes.
I grew up on a third-generation dryland wheat farm in central Washington state. I earned an MFA in Creative Nonfiction from Eastern Washington University. My chapbook of flash essays, "Kindling," was published in 2017 by Sweet: A Literary Confection.
My creative writing centers on dryland wheat farming, wildfires, place, loss, and more. In June 2025 I was selected for the Orion's Environmental Writer's Workshop in Rhinebeck, NY. I have been an editor at three print magazines.
Photo by Mitch Walker
I am an avid trail runner and have only drawn blood one time so far while running. (I sprain my ankle more often.) I also like backpacking in the Cascades and paddle boarding on our local lakes.
I grew up on a third-generation dryland wheat farm in central Washington state. I earned an MFA in Creative Nonfiction from Eastern Washington University. My chapbook of flash essays, "Kindling," was published in 2017 by Sweet: A Literary Confection.
My creative writing centers on dryland wheat farming, wildfires, place, loss, and more. In June 2025 I was selected for the Orion's Environmental Writer's Workshop in Rhinebeck, NY. I have been an editor at three print magazines.
Photo by Mitch Walker
Featured Articles & Essays
I was invited to answer this question alongside other western writers. // Published by High Desert Journal
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A look at conservation issues of the Spokane River, weaving research, interviews and my first time whitewater rafting. // Published in Out There Outdoors magazine
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My Editor's Letter examining the impact of acknowledging others on the trail // Published in Out There Outdoors magazine
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An excerpt from my print collection, "Kindling," this flash essay examines the ways we try to claim a place // Published by Sweet Publications
Read MoreCurrent Projects
I am work on a memoir/collection of essays based in the Columbia Basin of central Washington State, in dryland wheat country. This book is a portrait of a place, of growing up a woman in that (agri)culture, and about the art and craftsmanship of blue collar work. It's about water in the desert, healing lakes, and irrigation. It's about wildfires and climate change, big farm chemicals and organic foods. About rural flight, dying family farms in America, loving and losing places, and increasingly tense rural-urban lines. It's an ode, an ache, a love song, a praise. It's full of nighthawks and coyotes, dust devils and isolation. It explores how we shape the land, and how land shapes us. It examines the cultural myths and generational stresses we carry. It's a story as big as the sky. But I'm getting it down on the page.
Follow here or on my Substack as I pin this one down.
Follow here or on my Substack as I pin this one down.
SUBSTACK
"The fact that we planted a garden in the fire strip said a lot about our relationship to the threat of fire: it was the new normal in the west."
Read More"I feel the ever-present tension of loving and leaving places, of trying to straddle two worlds: nature and concrete, republicans and democrats, agriculture and academic culture."
Read More"I sip the drink, and sit with him, and say, 'Over my dead body will AI write my grandmother’s obituary.'"
Read MoreBOOKS
I won the Sweet Flash Nonfiction Contest in 2017 and had a limited run of hand-stitched chapbooks made. The title essay, "Kindling," was nominated for a Pushcart Prize.
https://sweetlit.com/issue-10-1/essay-lisa-laughlin/
From the foreward:
"Laughlin's work in these essays covers ground related to loss, to the beauty and bare truth of it, and to how our sense of place accomodates that beauty and bare truth. All three of these selections reflect on the dryland wheat farm of Laughlin's youth, its austerity and dangers, and her own desire to hold it, to keep this home close, while acknowledging that impossibility. With language as stark as the land itself, and in the presence of a writer who meditates and reflects and discovers, we get an opening — a consciousness — that invites us to meditate and reflect and discover alongside, that sketches this place in the small, meaningful strokes of the short form." —K.C. Wolfe, Co-Founding Editor
https://sweetlit.com/issue-10-1/essay-lisa-laughlin/
From the foreward:
"Laughlin's work in these essays covers ground related to loss, to the beauty and bare truth of it, and to how our sense of place accomodates that beauty and bare truth. All three of these selections reflect on the dryland wheat farm of Laughlin's youth, its austerity and dangers, and her own desire to hold it, to keep this home close, while acknowledging that impossibility. With language as stark as the land itself, and in the presence of a writer who meditates and reflects and discovers, we get an opening — a consciousness — that invites us to meditate and reflect and discover alongside, that sketches this place in the small, meaningful strokes of the short form." —K.C. Wolfe, Co-Founding Editor
More of Lisa's Writing
Selected Literary Works
"A Science and an Art" | Flyway Journal of Writing and Environment | contest finalist | Spring 2018 https://flywayjournal.org/non-fiction/a-science-and-an-art/
"Ephrata, WA" | Orion Magazine's "Place Where You Live" Section | May 2015 https://orionmagazine.org/article/ephrata-washington/
"Kindling" | Sweet Literary Magazine | Nominated for a Pushcart Prize | Sept. 2017 https://sweetlit.com/issue-10-1/essay-lisa-laughlin/
"Body and Field" | High Desert Journal | Oct. 2017 https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5eba1f61b311ac0566822d5c/t/5f98fe83a7b60175a59e363f/1603862149755/Lisa+Laughlin%2C+Body+and+Field+_+highdesertjournal.pdf
"A Sort of Trespass" | Sweet: A Literary Confection | Issue 9.1 https://sweetlit.com/issue-9-1/essay-lisa-laughlin/
"Listen to the Silence" | Belmont Story Review | Issue No. 1 https://issuu.com/belmontstoryreview/docs/bsrtext/2?ff&experiment=previewReaderTestMode,new-bff-links-purchased,new-bff-overlay
"An Absence of Yellow" | River Teeth's Beautiful Things | a micro essay | Nov. 2016 https://riverteethjournal.com/beautiful-things/an-absence-of-yellow/
"Ice Breaker" | Hippocampus Magazine | Mar. 2016 https://hippocampusmagazine.com/2016/03/ice-breaker-by-lisa-laughlin/
Selected Editor's Letters for Out There Outdoors
"A Crash Lesson in Community" | Fall 2025 https://outthereoutdoors.com/endurance-sports-community-crash-lesson/
"The Five-Second Trail Wave" | Summer 2025 https://outthereoutdoors.com/the-five-second-trail-wave/
"Find Your Flow" | Nov/Dec 2025 https://outthereoutdoors.com/find-your-flow/
"Learning the Lexicon of the Places We Love" | July/Aug 2024 https://outthereoutdoors.com/learning-the-lexicon-of-the-places-we-love/
"An Enlightening Backcountry Encounter" | May/June 2024 https://outthereoutdoors.com/an-enlightening-backcountry-encounter/
"Jumping into Summer" | May/ June 2023 https://outthereoutdoors.com/jumping-in-to-summer/
"Illumination for the Long Run" | March/Apr 2023 https://outthereoutdoors.com/illumination-for-the-long-run/
Selected Out There Outdoors Articles
"PFAS Chemicals Discovered in the Spokane River" | Fall 2025 https://outthereoutdoors.com/pfas-contamination-in-the-spokane-river/
"Reflections on a River" | May 2024 https://outthereoutdoors.com/reflections-on-a-river/
"Backcountry Biking for All" | An experience of north Idaho's Hiawatha Trail | Aug/Sept 2023 https://outthereoutdoors.com/backcountry-biking-for-all/
"On Walking a Toddler on the Trail" | Jan/Feb 2022 https://outthereoutdoors.com/on-walking-a-toddler-in-the-woods/
"Proof of Life: From Brain Tumor to 50k" | Based on an interview with a trail runner | Jan/Feb 2018 https://outthereoutdoors.com/proof-of-life-from-brain-tumor-to-50k/
"Barefooting the Spokane: The Short-Lived, Spokane River Water Ski Craze" | July 2018 https://outthereoutdoors.com/barefooting-the-spokane-the-short-lived-spokane-river-water-ski-craze/
Find the full collection of my articles here: https://outthereoutdoors.com/?s=lisa+laughlin
Selected Reviews
Book Review: "Raised by Ferns" by Maya Jewell Zeller | Forthcoming Spring 2026 at Open Space Reviews
Gear Review: SaltStick Electrolyte Tabs | Winter 2025 https://outthereoutdoors.com/saltstick-electrolyte-tabs/
Gear Shop Review: Solnix, Spokane Wash. | Winter 2025 https://outthereoutdoors.com/solnix-spokane-outdoor-gear-shop-community/
Guide Book Review: "Glacier National Park" by Jean Arthur | Summer 2025 https://outthereoutdoors.com/glacier-national-park-by-jean-arthur/
Gear Review: Tailwind Chocolate Recovery Mix | Spring 2024 https://outthereoutdoors.com/tailwind-chocolate-recovery-mix/
Book Review: "World of Wonders" | Mar/April 2024 https://outthereoutdoors.com/world-of-wonders-by-aimee-nezhukumatathil/
Articles and Profiles for DOMA Coffee
Profile on Paraclimber Mason Keough: https://www.domacoffee.com/blogs/blog/hitting-a-wall-then-climbing-it
Start with Coffee: Seaweed Farmer: https://www.domacoffee.com/pages/seaweed-farmer
Start With Coffee: Therapeutic Sailing: https://www.domacoffee.com/pages/dogsmile-adventures
Start With Coffee: Fly Fisher Guide: https://www.domacoffee.com/pages/fly-fishing-guide
Limited Oxygen Coffee Processing: https://www.domacoffee.com/blogs/blog/limited-oxygen-processing
The Dukunde Kawa Cooperative: https://www.domacoffee.com/pages/dukunde-kawa-co-op
Recent Appearances and Readings
GetLit! Festival April 2026, Spokane — "Parents Who Write: Making it Up As We Go," panel with Joe Wilkins, Ren Cedar Fuller, Uma Kukathas, and Beth Alvarado. (Link forthcoming)
Editor's Panel on "Life after the MFA" for Western Colorado University's nature writing program, February 2026
Campfire Stories "Tales from Our Public Lands" — November 2025, Spokane
Student Reading at the Orion Environmental Writer's Workshop, Omega, Rhinebeck, NY, June 2025
Contact
- Spokane, Washington, United States
I'm interested in freelance writing and editing projects, or just chatting about writing and good books. Get in touch!