Hi! Welcome to Filter Feeder, a newsletter about connecting deeper with your local nature and community.

Filter Feeder is published primarily from Tongva and Acjachemen lands. Learn whose land you’re residing on.

Want to get in touch? Reach out to filterfeederpress@gmail.com anytime.

Psst, are you a writer/artist/creative/nature-enthusiast? Submit your work for publication here (and also meet cool fellow people who fit a similar description)!

Learn more!

Why “Filter Feeder”?

Imagine a massive blue whale drawing in ocean water and catching tiny krill on its brush-like baleen. A barnacle extending a feathery, modified leg-structure on which it captures floating food particles. Filter feeders take in way more than they ultimately hold onto, but the process leaves them with nourishment for their journeys to come.

We’re all filter feeders in our own way — trying our best to strain out the most joyful and useful pieces possible from the waves of media, conversations, and interactions that flow through our days. This newsletter seeks to make sense of how those pieces may come together, particularly when related to science, art, and environmental justice.

You’ll probably like it here if you:

• want to get involved with your local community but don’t know where to start

• feel overwhelmed by the climate crisis (same)

• have ever considered starting a project or hobby — painting, home-decorating, gardening, zine-making, writing, puzzling, coloring, pickling, kazooing, literally anything mildly creative — just for fun

• are at least a little interested in nature (if the answer is no, hang out for a bit & maybe we’ll get you there)

• are related or related-adjacent to Arya & want to see what she’s up to while she procrastinates catching up on her text messages (hi, very wonderful family, thanks for your patience, sending love your way)

Who’s filtering?

Arya Natarajan (she/her)

My name’s Arya, and I’m very excited that you’re here. I’m a writer and illustrator based in Los Angeles, California. Whether dispelling snail-myths, compiling book-recs, or spending a full month raving about frogs, I was and still am pretty consistently stumbling into and sharing about new pieces of nature that delight me. I hope Filter Feeder can bring some of the delight to your inbox.

I started this platform/newsletter/digital zine to find ways to deepen my own connections with the nature and community right around me. Now (aka 2025), Filter Feeder will be accepting submissions every quarter from creatives anywhere who want to share their own perspectives on connecting with their local nature and community. If that sounds like you, please get in touch anytime!

You can expect Filter Feeder in your inbox …

(Roughly) every other week with a post about nature, community, or anything in-between. That includes interviews with artists or nature-leaders, low-stakes ways to get involved with community science or climate action groups, illustrated stories about striking and/or criminally underrated animals and plants, and so much more. All of this is entirely free.

Want even more Filter Feeder?

Consider becoming a paid subscriber! Everything from paid subscriptions will go toward a pool of funds from which I’ll one day be able to financially compensate any and all contributors to Filter Feeder. For $6/month or $60/year, you’ll get all of the above, plus a couple extras …

• Automatic access to all installments of a natural list, aka an illustrated mini-series released here on Filter Feeder that, through a personal lens, explores the most surprising and delightful things to know about the immense expanse that is native plants, animals, and fungi of California. This series was inspired by the common tradition of naturalists keeping “life lists” that document the species they’ve seen throughout their lifetimes, and it’ll run as long as it takes to get through every California native species (which is to say, buckle in, because there are over 6,500 plants alone).

• Access to a digital copy of a new, original zine each quarter (containing something wonderful or important-to-know about nature, community, and/or how humans interface with both). You’ll also get opt-in access to the Filter Feeder Mail Club, in which you’ll receive a physical copy that mini-zine in your mailbox every month. You can expect more info on the logistics of how that physical mail delivery will happen safely and securely to be delivered to your email inbox if you become a paid subscriber.

• More regular personal updates from me (Arya), including behind-the-scenes looks at running this publication, highlights from in-person events I’m attending, the real tea on my freelancing journey (lol), and more.