In 2024, I retired from journalism. It had been 20 years since I moved to Houston after obtaining my master’s degree in journalism, and during those two decades I alternated freelancing with communications jobs and volunteer activities. It didn’t prove as fulfilling as I anticipated, and I began to feel a little unmoored, disorganized, not fully focused, and definitely not as fulfilled as I would have hoped.
I have always been a writer. The one thing that comes naturally to me is being curious, finding facts, and sharing them. Civic engagement alone wasn’t fulfilling enough, and as the last quarter of 2025 advanced, I found myself thinking more and more about how much I’d like to be writing again.
So my 2026 announcement is that I’m returning to writing. I will be sharing more about specifics as they develop, but one key decision I’ve made is that instead of being willing to write about anything, I want to develop expertise in one or two areas and focus on those. So while I’m always open to interesting subjects, I plan to focus on the topics that are of most interest to me, and the ways in which they intersect: religion/religious identity, and nature and the environment.
Along with writing articles and essays, I am also turning my attention to the long-neglected manuscript I produced as my final project for my MFA in creative nonfiction. It was meant to become a book, and honestly I think this is a great time for a series of essays on religious identity in America.
So please wish me luck, pray for my success, and follow my progress in this brave new world that is even more dependent on virtual identities, online platforms, and self-promotion than it was when I was started what should be a solitary and quiet job for introverted nerds like me.
Ruth Nasrullah 