In recent years, my creative non-fiction, journalism, and new media writings have provided fresh and productive outlets for bringing my interdisciplinary scholarship to bear upon current issues in science, humanities, arts, sustainability, education, and politics for a general audience.
One notable example of this is my work with the Center for Humans and Nature on the book City Creatures: Animal Encounters in the Chicago Wilderness (Univ. of Chicago Press) published in October 2015. City Creatures is also a longrunning blog project (since 2012) and current art exhibit at the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum about city-based wildlife and human interactions.
Our work on this began with a two-day writers’ retreat in the Indiana Dunes in May 2012, and my contribution to the book is the non-fiction essay, “Canoeing through History: Wild Encounters on Bubbly Creek” (pdf). My essays on the City Creatures blog include:
- Commonplace Nature, Close at Hand: Thinking about Leonard Dubkin as Spring Emerges (19 May 2014)
- Wildlife in Chicago and Fracking in Southern Illinois: Ecological and Human Connections (2 Dec 2013)
- To Apprehend the Wild, Don’t Forget the Kids (18 March 2013)
- Canoes, Cities, and the Creatures of Bubbly Creek (2 Aug 2012)
