Barbara Cervone  ·  Work & Publications  ·  Personal Writing  ·  Progressive Education

Personal Writing

Postcards from the Rogue Valley

Since moving from Brooklyn to Ashland, Oregon in 2018, Barbara has written more than 200 essays on life in Southern Oregon — nature and wildlife, community, education, climate, local politics, and more. A selection of the best collected stories and photos was published as a book: Postcards from the Rogue Valley (Next Generation Press, 2021).

Visit the full blog: postcards-from-the-rogue-valley.blog

Education & Youth

• When a Classroom Becomes a Crater (2026)
• Ashland High School Graduates Plan Their Next Step (2026)
• When College Is a Balancing Act (2025)
• Building Something New: Ashland Youth Make Theater Together (2025)
• First in the Family: Stories of Perseverance (2022)
• First Descent: Indigenous Youth Kayak the Klamath River (2025)
• When Our Relationship with School Becomes Optional (2024)
• Where You Go Is Not Who You’ll Be (2023)
• Farm to School: Cultivating Healthy Kids and Communities (2023)
• Child Care Deserts: Why Child Care Matters (2023)
• On the Slaughter of Our Children (2023)
• Montana’s Landmark Youth Climate Trial (2023)
• Standing with Young Activists Against Gun Violence (2019)
• Student Climate Strikers: Ashland and Beyond (2019)

Democracy & Community

• Oregon’s Political Identity: A Laboratory of Democracy (2026)
• We Make a Life by What We Give (2026)
• The Hill We Climb (2025)
• Resilience Amid Uncertainty: Some Thoughts on a University in Crisis (2025)
• Practicing Democracy, One Signature at a Time (2024)
• Voting Re-imagined: Oregon Shows the Way (2020)
• Whites Only: Race in Oregon (2020)
• From Pulitzer Prize to Useful Fools: The Demise of Local Newspapers (2021)
• Democracy in Action: Left and Right in Oregon (2018)

Nature, Climate & Place

• Living with Wildfire (2024)
• The Really Big One: Not If, But When (2024)
• Oregon’s Old Growth Forests (2024)
• Like the Ocean We Rise: Young People Confront Climate Change (2022)
• Our House Is On Fire: Climate Action Where I Stand (2022)
• The Hidden Life of Trees (2020)
• This Land Was Their Land (2021)
• “The Dams Are Coming Down and It’s about Damn Time” (2024)

Personal Favorites

• A Tale of Two Cellos (2024)
• Reminiscences: Growing Up in a Family of Mathematicians (2022)
• Still Becoming at 76 (2024)
• Coming of Age with The Beach Boys (2022)
• Summer Reflections, Sixty Years Apart (2024)
• Anne Lamott: Straight Talk on Aging, Miracles, Humor and More (2024)
• 10,000 Steps (2019)
• Some Reflections on the Power of Music (2025)
• The Logger’s Daughter (2021)

Earlier Writing

• “Looking Outward” — Graduation speech, Radcliffe College, June 1965.