My writing life: Lately I’ve been writing about sustainability—the effects of mosquito spraying on pollinators, the need to save a local forest—as well as consulting on Eileen Fisher’s B Corp report. I am an Eileen Fisher alum (longtime sustainability writer) and former magazine editor (House Beautiful, Victoria, Working Mother), as well as a co-author of three books on US history.

My environmental life: Locally, I chair the Madison (N.J.) Environmental Commission. Together with amazing colleagues, we’ve passed a tri-town plastic bag ban, run eco house and garden tours and won seven consecutive achievement awards from the Association of N.J. Environmental Commissions. As for the forest we’re trying to save, I’m on the board of Friends of the Drew Forest and contribute mightily to communication and outreach.

My book publishing life: My father and I published three books on American history, the most recent of which is Real Life at the White House (Routledge). Dad, a high school history teacher, was interviewed on CBS Evening News; I appeared on the History Channel. We both were featured on Entertainment Tonight and the NBC Radio Network, as well as in USA Today, the New York Post and numerous other venues. Working together was amazing. I miss him.

My latest project: Years in the making, The Heartbreak Whale is a novel that tells the story of  an estranged family of psychics—one practicing, one dangerous, one who just wants to be normal—that comes together when the youngest is knocked off a tourist boat and swallowed by a whale. “Missing New Jersey Mother” is headline news, but the Robertson women don’t need TV—they have their own channels. Jude, a psychic with a huge following, intuits that her sister is in trouble and flies East, all too eager to escape a recent breakup. Her mother, who runs a Vermont beauty salon, drives south, wondering how to make amends. Meanwhile, Shelly, a copy editor with a fraying marriage, is stuck in a white room in the belly of a whale, asking, “Why me?”

Contact info: My agent is Barbara Hogenson of the Barbara Hogenson Agency, (212) 874-8084, barbarahogenson@gmail.com.