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Alexandra Marvar

@hollowwalls

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Freelance journalist. Look for my writing in @nytimes @natgeo @wsjmag @believermag etc. 🦆🦅🦜
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📍The Berkshires

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In the Berkshires, a Morgan family mansion is reclaiming its former glory. Its spirits approve.

🗞️ This week, another story in the New York Times. And a surprise today: Another Sunday print section cover 🥂. Go big or go home.

Thanks to everyone who read & shared my feature about a miraculously resurrected #Berkshires #GildedAge mansion and its #haunted restoration. 🍂 Thanks to Claire Shomphe for introducing me to the spooky side of this story and to the friends and family of Ventfort Hall for sharing your experiences and wisdom. Thanks to the at least four different NYT editors who helped usher it into existence ✨

@ghormlin @ventforthall #spookyseason #hauntedhouse @nytimes taken in Berkshire County by @hollowwalls

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a year ago

In print today. And easy to find in the stack. Talking to these sources really made me think about natural soundscapes - and birding - in a new way. taken in Berkshire County by @hollowwalls

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3 years ago

Gratitude to The Editors for blessing this shake-up of the Styles section. (One in particular!) And gratitude to my sources, who kept me in the loop on this for a YEAR. #spaceportcamden taken in Cumberland Island National Seashore by @hollowwalls

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5 years ago

🕯️🕯️🕯️ taken in Quito, Ecuador by @hollowwalls

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6 days ago

The street band played a very moving song. taken in Quito, Ecuador by @hollowwalls

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5 days ago

What a delightful surprise to get an email asking if I'd write up a #hometour to accompany these gorgeous photographs by @janebeilesphoto of @happymenocalstudio — for a brilliant editor at the illustrious @archdigest.

Loved catching up with Happy about her work (which you might recognize from her collabs with Schumacher or Paperless Post) and the old-growth hemlock forest around her family's gorgeous c.1710 home ... By the way, the hemlock forest is endangered by the invasive hemlock woolly adelgid — but that's a different story!

🌲🌿🌴 taken in Bedford, New York by @hollowwalls

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12 days ago

🍁🍂🍁 Big work, small retreat 🍂💻☕ taken in Catskills NY by @hollowwalls

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12 days ago

Look at this bog!!

While looking for a good place to drink pumpkin spice gas station coffee we stumbled upon (but stayed on the walkways of) this high-elevation acid bog with this brilliant cranberry-colored sphagnum moss mat and these marvelous, native, carnivorous purple pitcherplants. Not to mention a (neon orange) red eft!

Thank you @nature_org and NPS for protecting this magnificent rainbow patch of Western Mass. #autumnalAF taken in Franklin County by @hollowwalls

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19 days ago

I love my bird ID apps, they helped me fall in love with this pursuit, but I started to get this feeling I was leaning on them too much... and pulling out my phone in the woods way more than I wanted to be. That's how it started...

Saturday, my talking head on @Bloomberg This Weekend. I was invited to come talk about hobbies and tech — in particular, #birdwatching's tech stack — and how the option of aid from #AI or ML apps changes things.

I think these tools are fantastic if we use them with intentionality and don't fall into a trap where we're just letting them store all the knowledge we'd otherwise earn on our own. On the show, I got a chance to dig into the cognitive psych concept of #desirabledifficulty — and how tech (and AI) gives us the option of whether we have it or not, not just in our jobs or in our schooling but in our hobbies and passion projects too.

Here are some of the least embarrassing moments! 🫣 Thanks to the producers and to the hosts David Gura (who had Merlin at the ready) and Christina Ruffini. taken in Berkshire County by @hollowwalls

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18 days ago

Gulls will be gulls... Also, new for @bloomberg #pursuits. Hot topic! I asked #birders, app builders, and a cognitive psychologist who studies learning and memory about the #appification of once screentime-free hobbies — including #birdwatching.

I think it was @manoushz's #BodyElectric that inspired me to, in the age of AI, overthink my birding tech stack... glad I did. It is a *thing.* Thanks to Michael Lombardo of @mcgbirdclub, @juliezickefoose, @sparkbirdproject's Jenn @lodismith, & the wonderful @cornellbirds folks for their time and wisdom.

Bloomberg's paywall is impenetrable, so please enjoy the GIFT LINK in my links. taken in The Berkshires, MA by @hollowwalls

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22 days ago

Hector and the Blue-Black Tanagers in his ride-or-die 1976 bird field guide by @hollowwalls

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a month ago

New in @atmos - I wrote about the world's largest wolf howl library and the people devoted to better understanding one of human history's most villainized predators.

Indescribably exciting and gratifying to go from putting a story idea down as text in an email to seeing it take flight and become a whole new thing when a pro (and an artist) like Ami Vitale @amivitale gets the assignment.

Thanks ATMOS — the vision! the thoughtfulness! the patience — for making it happen.

Read more about @thecrywolfproject, @living_w_wolves, Yellowstone Wolf Project, and writer and wolf observer Rick McIntyre at atmos.earth. taken in Yellowstone National Park by @hollowwalls

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24 days ago