Neil is a writer based in Brooklyn.
For 20 years he’s written for National Geographic, reporting around the world at the intersections of conflict, climate science, and cultural change. His first book, Frostlines, about the transformation of the Arctic, will be published in December 2025 by Ecco.
Neil’s work regularly appears in National Geographic, the Virginia Quarterly Review, and The American Scholar, among other publications. He is currently a writer on the science blog The Last Word on Nothing, and he writes a mostly-regular newsletter on Substack about travel, writing, and science called Don’t Save Anything. Between 2006 and 2015, he covered conflict in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Kurdistan.
He also works in film, television, and audio, and his investigative podcast, Unfinished: Deep South, was nominated for a Peabody Award. He also teaches journalism and non-fiction writing, and has worked at Boston University, The University of the South, Denison University, and Furman University.
Neil is the recipient of numerous awards and grants, recently including one from the Pulitzer Center for his work on the decline of Arctic caribou. In 2022 he was the John D. And Katherine T. MacArthur Foundation resident at Yaddo. In 2021 he was a storyteller-in-residence at Denison University.
Neil lives with his partner, Taylor Hom, and their children.
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Instagram: @neilshea13
Substack: Don’t Save Anything
Literary Agent: Susan Canavan susan@wlabooks.com