Me

My name is Meg Bernhard, and I’m a freelance writer.

I’ve reported from around Europe and the United States for The New York Times Magazine, The Los Angeles Times, The New Yorker, Hazlitt, The Virginia Quarterly Review, and others. Currently, I am working on a book about the world’s deserts, for Random House.

I’ve written about returning love ones’ bodies home; grappling with the vastness of loss during the COVID-19 pandemic; unemployed Vegas acrobats; the psychotherapy EMDR; a lady truck driver; ‘caravans’ of women bound for the Spanish countryside; secrets; a short-term lake in Death Valley; and how reporting on death has helped me with my own grief. I’m interested in loss in its many forms as well as environment, climate, and place, especially the Western U.S.

I’m from Southern California (specifically, this weird town) and live in Las Vegas, Nevada, where I sometimes hang out with Elvis.

In 2023, I wrote a series about climate change and the environment in southern Nevada as the writer in residence for Desert Companion, Nevada Public Radio’s magazine; the Nevada Press Association awarded it second place for “Local Column” that year. Here’s one essay about a wildfire in the Mojave National Preserve, one of my favorite places.

My work has been supported by the Overseas Press Club Foundation, the Pulitzer Center, the Institute for Journalism and Natural Resources, the International Women’s Media Foundation, and the Bread Loaf Environmental Writers’ Conference. In 2024, I was the inaugural Spurrier-Winiarski Wine Writer-in-Residence at U.C. Davis, and in 2023, I published my first book, about wine and power, with Bloommsbury’s Object Lessons series. You can order here. I’m represented by Allison Devereux at Trellis Literary Management.

Send me an email at megpbernhard[at]gmail.com with story ideas, book recs, your best hiking spots, or just to say hello. I’d love to hear from you.

Follow me on Instagram @megbernhard.