Brett Ortler
@gutenfrog.bsky.social
I'm a naturalist, a writer, and an editor based in the Upper Midwest. Acquisitions editor for AdventureKeen. Author of popsci books. Poet and literary journal editor (prosepoems.com). Moths! Sometime tardigrade wrangler. For more, visit brettortler.com
Pinned
Brett Ortler
@gutenfrog.bsky.social
· Mar 15
"Recession Generation" is the first poem in Democracy of Noise, by Dan Pinkerton, which released TODAY! Here is a video of yours truly reading it. 📚💙
Did I name-drop the Savannah Bananas @thesavbananas.bsky.social in a #poem? I did. 💙📚
November 16, 2025 at 3:02 AM
Did I name-drop the Savannah Bananas @thesavbananas.bsky.social in a #poem? I did. 💙📚
Reposted by Brett Ortler
ICE agents forcibly arrested an undocumented house painter in Northfield, Minnesota without showing him a warrant Tuesday morning, according to his family.
ICE breaks car window, arrests Northfield man at residential job site
ICE agents forcibly arrested an undocumented house painter in Northfield, Minnesota without showing him a warrant Tuesday morning, according to his family.
sahanjournal.com
November 13, 2025 at 9:38 PM
ICE agents forcibly arrested an undocumented house painter in Northfield, Minnesota without showing him a warrant Tuesday morning, according to his family.
I was *so* excited to see that Dudley Edmondson's PEOPLE THE PLANET NEEDS NOW was a Silver Medalist at the 2025 National Outdoor Book Awards! @nobabooks.bsky.social
💙📚#booksky
💙📚#booksky
November 13, 2025 at 4:39 PM
I was *so* excited to see that Dudley Edmondson's PEOPLE THE PLANET NEEDS NOW was a Silver Medalist at the 2025 National Outdoor Book Awards! @nobabooks.bsky.social
💙📚#booksky
💙📚#booksky
Wait, was the rapture TODAY!? #northernlights in suburban Minneapolis
November 12, 2025 at 2:47 AM
Wait, was the rapture TODAY!? #northernlights in suburban Minneapolis
Whoa. A heckuva show. Visible to the unaided eye, and wild through a camera. Our horizon looked like an alien spaceship was approaching. #northernlights
November 12, 2025 at 2:02 AM
Whoa. A heckuva show. Visible to the unaided eye, and wild through a camera. Our horizon looked like an alien spaceship was approaching. #northernlights
Reposted by Brett Ortler
Did you know. That the meme-explosion that was the wooden model of Sacabambaspis (an Ordovician jawless fish) held at a Museum in Helsinki, was created by a pioneering Estonian fish paleontologist and palaeoartist, Elga Mark-Kurik. 🧵
November 11, 2025 at 4:08 AM
Did you know. That the meme-explosion that was the wooden model of Sacabambaspis (an Ordovician jawless fish) held at a Museum in Helsinki, was created by a pioneering Estonian fish paleontologist and palaeoartist, Elga Mark-Kurik. 🧵
For Midwesterners, the Edmund #Fitzgerald holds a special place in our shared history. Years ago, as a friend's wife was dying of Alzheimer's, I wrote this poem that alludes to the Fitzgerald.
#edmundfitzgerald
💙📚
#edmundfitzgerald
💙📚
November 11, 2025 at 2:15 AM
For Midwesterners, the Edmund #Fitzgerald holds a special place in our shared history. Years ago, as a friend's wife was dying of Alzheimer's, I wrote this poem that alludes to the Fitzgerald.
#edmundfitzgerald
💙📚
#edmundfitzgerald
💙📚
Heads-up, #poets and writers of very short fiction, since it's now SAD SEASON (not very many bugs!) Prosepoems.com is now open for submissions! We run prose poems, short-shorts, and very short fiction (a page long, max, preferably a paragraph or so. Details here: www.prosepoems.com/masthead-2/
💙📚
💙📚
Issues 8 and 9, Prose Poems (March-April 2025)
This issue of Prose Poems features prose poetry by Michele Harmeling, David James, and Kevin Canfield
Prosepoems.com
November 11, 2025 at 2:02 AM
Heads-up, #poets and writers of very short fiction, since it's now SAD SEASON (not very many bugs!) Prosepoems.com is now open for submissions! We run prose poems, short-shorts, and very short fiction (a page long, max, preferably a paragraph or so. Details here: www.prosepoems.com/masthead-2/
💙📚
💙📚
November 6, 2025 at 3:35 AM
Really glad that two of our Anoka-Hennepin ISD-11 School Board Candidates (Simon and Deschene) retained their seats. That's incredibly important, and I'm also incredibly grateful for Abby Payeur's hard-fought (and pretty close!) campaign against steep odds.
November 5, 2025 at 2:55 AM
Really glad that two of our Anoka-Hennepin ISD-11 School Board Candidates (Simon and Deschene) retained their seats. That's incredibly important, and I'm also incredibly grateful for Abby Payeur's hard-fought (and pretty close!) campaign against steep odds.
Reposted by Brett Ortler
GAR WEEK 2025 is HERE!!!
Join @garlab.bsky.social as we celebrate these awesome living fossil fishes and freshwater biodiversity for #GarWeek!
We look forward to hearing from YOU with any gar pics, puns, stories, GARtwork and questions this week!
Join @garlab.bsky.social as we celebrate these awesome living fossil fishes and freshwater biodiversity for #GarWeek!
We look forward to hearing from YOU with any gar pics, puns, stories, GARtwork and questions this week!
November 3, 2025 at 3:04 PM
GAR WEEK 2025 is HERE!!!
Join @garlab.bsky.social as we celebrate these awesome living fossil fishes and freshwater biodiversity for #GarWeek!
We look forward to hearing from YOU with any gar pics, puns, stories, GARtwork and questions this week!
Join @garlab.bsky.social as we celebrate these awesome living fossil fishes and freshwater biodiversity for #GarWeek!
We look forward to hearing from YOU with any gar pics, puns, stories, GARtwork and questions this week!
Dr. Acula, PhD in Hematology, at your service. #halloween
November 1, 2025 at 12:23 AM
Dr. Acula, PhD in Hematology, at your service. #halloween
So every morning, I make a Lunch Letter for my daughter by hastily photoshopping a note together, in a newspaper-like format. Here is today's #Halloween letter. It features the very real threat of "poison" #candy that must be carefully tested by Dad. 🎃
October 31, 2025 at 2:03 PM
So every morning, I make a Lunch Letter for my daughter by hastily photoshopping a note together, in a newspaper-like format. Here is today's #Halloween letter. It features the very real threat of "poison" #candy that must be carefully tested by Dad. 🎃
Reposted by Brett Ortler
October 29, 2025 at 9:14 PM
Anoka-Hennepin residents, don’t skip this election!
A 3-3 split between liberals and conservatives at the state’s largest school district has led to gridlock over issues including the budget and state social studies standards.
Written by @bzosiad.bsky.social
Written by @bzosiad.bsky.social
After battles over equity, Anoka-Hennepin school board race could tip balance of power
Voters could break a 3-3 split between conservatives and liberals on the Anoka-Hennepin school board, which oversees the state’s largest school district, in November.
sahanjournal.com
October 22, 2025 at 3:24 PM
Anoka-Hennepin residents, don’t skip this election!
So I always prowl auctions here in MN, and I am on the lookout for items to add to ye olde cabinet of curiosity. Initial hunches: a centipede, a caddisfly or moth, and maybe a sap beetle.
October 18, 2025 at 11:21 PM
So I always prowl auctions here in MN, and I am on the lookout for items to add to ye olde cabinet of curiosity. Initial hunches: a centipede, a caddisfly or moth, and maybe a sap beetle.
Reposted by Brett Ortler
this rocks. when indiana edu killed the student newspaper, Purdue stepped up, printed the forbidden issue, drove it to Bloomington and stocked the boxes.
October 18, 2025 at 6:27 PM
this rocks. when indiana edu killed the student newspaper, Purdue stepped up, printed the forbidden issue, drove it to Bloomington and stocked the boxes.
Reposted by Brett Ortler
Administrators at Indiana University baselessly fired the student media director and ordered the student paper to cease its print edition, so it'd sure be a shame if this excellent digital front page were to be widely shared today
issuu.com/idsnews/docs...
issuu.com/idsnews/docs...
October 17, 2025 at 1:31 PM
Administrators at Indiana University baselessly fired the student media director and ordered the student paper to cease its print edition, so it'd sure be a shame if this excellent digital front page were to be widely shared today
issuu.com/idsnews/docs...
issuu.com/idsnews/docs...
Well, today I learned that sometimes groundhogs are inadvertent #archaeologists. Sometimes they expose unknown sites when digging burrows. The Ufferman site in Ohio is one. Huh! Here is one I spotted the other day.
September 25, 2025 at 1:43 PM
Well, today I learned that sometimes groundhogs are inadvertent #archaeologists. Sometimes they expose unknown sites when digging burrows. The Ufferman site in Ohio is one. Huh! Here is one I spotted the other day.
I wasn't going to #LAMP tonight, as my kiddo had soccer, but I turned on the outside lamp for a half hour since it was warm out. The moral of the story, as told by this leafhopper (maybe Gyponana): always lamp. 🦋
September 17, 2025 at 2:48 AM
I wasn't going to #LAMP tonight, as my kiddo had soccer, but I turned on the outside lamp for a half hour since it was warm out. The moral of the story, as told by this leafhopper (maybe Gyponana): always lamp. 🦋
It cannot be a good feeling to be stuck in the *Franklin Strait* in September in the Northwest Passage. That's...like 100 miles north of where the Erebus and Terror froze in. Yikes.
Company launches plan to refloat, salvage grounded ship in Northwest Passage
Updated Sept. 11 at 4:50 p.m. ET A plan to salvage the cargo ship Thamesborg is underway after the Canadian Coast Guard completed aerial and remote-operated vehicle surveys of the vessel, which sits g...
nunatsiaq.com
September 12, 2025 at 4:10 PM
It cannot be a good feeling to be stuck in the *Franklin Strait* in September in the Northwest Passage. That's...like 100 miles north of where the Erebus and Terror froze in. Yikes.