I felt so small next to the reptiles. Not just the lumpy Stegosaurus huddled against the wall of the shadowy museum basement. Even the three-toed tracks - Grallator, I loved the name, like a growl - looked large next to my little hands. A cast of a T. rex skull large enough to enclose most of my body within it grinned and gleamed in the gloom.

Cramped in the dim space, lit by old museum cabinets festooned with fossils and casts, my childhood self darted between the displays and took in all I could from this place. The Dinosaur Den.

You can still visit the same hall at New Jersey’s Morris Museum. It’s different now. Much like myself, the Dinosaur Den has undergone some renovations since the 1980s. But I still remember the anticipation of taking the institution’s elevator down - down through time, down to the dinosaurs - and walking among the remains of animals that once inhabited the same world. I’ve spent my entire life trying to cultivate and hold onto the wide-eyed feeling of quietly stepping into a place where maybe, with luck, I might hear the creatures I’d come to visit.

That hunger has taken me pretty far. More than a dozen books (two of which hit the bestseller list), awards, TV and radio, advising the Jurassic World franchise, writing for just about every publication with an active science section, and even searching rocks from Alaska to Mexico to Argentina in search of fossils, I’ve lived many of my fossil-fueled childhood dreams. But I’m not even close to being finished yet. That brings me to why you’re finding me here, making myself at home in your inbox.

I fear for science writing. During my fifteen years as a professional writer and journalist, I rose on the tide of science blogs and saw the online conversation gain support from established magazines like Smithsonian, WIRED, Scientific American, and National Geographic. And then I watched the entire edifice collapse. By 2020, magazines had soured on science blogs and the move was back towards more traditional science journalism. I took the pivot and, in the midst of writing books, raced to find new stories and outlets that might take them. Freelancers always live a tenuous and anxious existence, but, most of the time, I felt like I could support myself writing about the latest fossil finds announced each week.

Now conditions have changed again. Publications I used to write for, such as Popular Science, slashed their budgets and stopped taking freelance work. The New York Times, Atlantic, and Washington Post have added more than little fuel to the manufactured controversy about transgender people like me, telling me that I’d never be welcome in their pages (and discouraging me from even trying to pitch). Even among clients I’ve worked with year in and year out, now I’m hearing that editors aren’t interested in paleontology stories anymore unless those articles are surefire ways to boost engagement and subscriptions. I find myself in the strange position of having built a career from nothing, up from the bone-filled rock, only to be told no one wants dinosaurs anymore.

I don’t believe it. I could dig into the many structural and cultural reasons science journalism is once again crumbling - from billionaire business models that gut acquired companies to the fact public interest in science has moved away from legacy journalism - but, suffice it to say, I don’t think the world is tired of dinosaurs and prehistory. Not when the third Jurassic World sequel can rake in $869 million globally, the past year has seen several fossil-centric prestige TV series debut, and I constantly see the enthusiasm for new fossil species spill all over social media. So rather than struggle with editorial desires about what stories should be told, I’m going to bring them right to you.

I’m thinking of this like planting a garden. I’m putting out a mess of different seeds and I’m going to see how they grow. Here, you’ll get fossil news and insight as best I can bring it to you. You can expect new discoveries, interviews with scientists, and strange tales dredged from the depths of paleontology’s deep literature, an improved version of the blogs I began writing nearly 20 years ago. I’m also going to be making videos over on YouTube, enthusing over everything from dinosaur pop culture to deep dives into how we know what we know about the terrible lizards. I love dinosaur games, too, and am setting up to do some playthroughs of games like Dino Crisis 2 and Amber Isle.

I love writing most of all, of course, and so this newsletter is at the heart of my metamorphosis. Paid subscribers will see a new, in-depth piece every Wednesday, which will be posted to my website blog a week after initial publication. And everyone will get a weekly link roundup of personal news, paleo links, and other glimmerings that catch my eye. I’m hoping to add other incentives as I go, but I’m trying to start simple.

I still want to share what I love about the deep past and all we’re learning about it. I want to enjoy and share that feeling that so enraptured me in that museum basement so many years ago, because I know that affection and curiosity is still shared by so many of us. Thank you so much for coming with me on this new expedition - and, truly, I’d be grateful if you’d tell a friend.

Next time: a tiny, pinecone-shaped reptile with a terrifying name