Mary Ellen Hannibal

I am a Bay Area writer and editor focusing on natural history. My new book is Citizen Scientist: Searching for Heroes and Hope in an Age of Extinction. It is all about how we are losing species right under our noses, something E.O. Wilson says is more dangerous to human well-being than climate change. I participate in projects and explain some history -- Darwin, Jefferson, Steinbeck, and Joseph Campbell were all citizen scientists. I also connect with regular people who are saving nature. My father died while I was writing the book, which changed how I was writing it. As Campbell said, myth is nature speaking, and the goal of human life is to align with nature -- dying, my father taught me about both. My previous book is The Spine of the Continent. To research it, I travelled the Rockies from Waterton Lakes, Canada, down to Sonora, Mexico. Nobody knows precisely when the term “spine of the continent” came into use to describe this vast landscape, but the Miistakis Indians called the Rockies “the backbone of the world.” So much of what science tells us today about nature is echoed in native wisdom. My previous books are Evidence of Evolution, Good Parenting Through Your Divorce, and Leaves & Pods. I have received a bunch of fellowships and awards, including the National Association of Science Writers award.