There are some days (Weeks? Months? Years?) when everything seems like a slog. It’s all too much, too hard, too much effort. Unless you’re super-human, I’m guessing you’ve been there, done that. In my first article for the media site Medium, I decided to share some of the most important life lessons I’ve ever been […]

We humans can be odd, cruel, empathetic, dismissive, protective, and transcendent in our treatment of others … and of ourselves. I try to demonstrate all of this in a short piece published online in Silver Needle Press. “A Heart. A Monster.” tells micro-stories of intense experiences from my latest “ethnographic safari” across the United States, […]

  Years ago, while on an early-morning birdwalk in the Terai region of western Nepal, things went suddenly very, very wrong, and I found myself alone in tiger territory (my guides had disappeared for parts unknown). The story of that birdwalk-turned-predator-stalking, “Of Fur Not Fowl: Or How Not to Catch a Tiger,” has just been […]

Your favorite ethnoecologist and her tiny home is one of twelve retrofits featured in a brand-new book, The Modern House Bus, by Kimberley Mok (Countrymen Press, 2018). The book provides a luxurious (“transporting”) introduction to bus conversions by a wide range of owners (young families, techies, freelancers, artisans), along with a how-to guide for DIYers. […]

How do we keep traditional cradle basket making, beadworking, and storytelling alive? We can support and promote Native authors: in print, in film, and in person. Three books, three authors, three years in the making, together with almost thirty San José State University students in my Nature and World Cultures class. Published with a grant […]