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Astra is currently writing her first book, a researched memoir about identity formation and truth-telling in the wake of a catastrophic brain injury. In 2024, the manuscript was selected as a finalist in The Yale Review's Nonfiction Book Competition. 

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Two-time winner of the Banff Mountain Book Competition’s ‘Best Article’ award (2022, 2024), her work has also been nominated for the Society for Environmental Journalist’s ‘Best Feature’ prize, for a National Magazine 'Best Feature' award, and for inclusion in the Best American Essays anthology. Several of her pieces have been included in ‘Best of the Year’ lists. Her work has been discussed in NPR, the New York Times, GQ, Print Magazine, and elsewhere.

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Currently a contributing editor at Summit Journal, Astra has previously served as the editor-in-chief of the Chrysalis literary and arts journal and as a staff writer at Capital Daily News and the Willamette Collegian.

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Astra teaches and facilitates creative nonfiction workshops with Write Around Portland and the Juneau Icefield Research program. She has led writing workshops while ski-traversing Alaska's biggest icefield, in an assisted living facility, on bike rides, to people experiencing dementia, and on the side of a mountain in the Selkirks only accessible by helicopter. She will occasionally also teach in classrooms.

A graduate of the Banff Centre’s Mountain and Wilderness Writing residency program, Astra’s work has been supported by a Freeflow Foundation scholarship and an American Alpine Club research award. In 2024, she was an Oregon Humanities Community Storytelling Fellow.

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You can subscribe to her free, infrequent newsletter here. Get in touch by writing her at astralincoln@gmail.com.

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