WORKSHOP PARTNERS (2012)

Keynote

Virginia_Morell_2.jpg

Virginia Morell is an acclaimed science journalist and author. A contributing correspondent for Science, she has covered evolutionary and conservation biology since 1990.  Morell is also a regular contributor to Conde Nast Traveler and  National Geographic. In 2004, her article on climate change was a finalist for Best Environmental Article from the Society of Environmental Journalists. Her articles have also appeared in Smithsonian, Discover, The New York Times Magazine, Outside, and Creative Nonfiction.

In addition to her journalistic work, Morell is the author of three celebrated books. The New York Times awarded a Notable Book of the Year to Ancestral Passions, her dramatic biography of the famed Leakey family and their findings about the origins of humankind. Blue Nile, about her journey down the Blue Nile to Sudan, was a San Francisco Chronicle Best Travel Book. And The Washington Post listed Wildlife Wars, which she co-authored with Richard Leakey, as one of their Best Books of the Year.  

An accomplished public speaker, Morell spent March 2009 as a principal lecturer for National Geographic Society’s Expeditions Program on one of its exclusive, round-the-world trips. She lives in Ashland, Oregon with her husband, writer Michael McRae, a calico cat, Nini, and a smart, six-year-old American Working Farm Collie, Buckaroo, (who is currently unemployed).

Read “Animal Minds”, Virginia Morell’s National Geographic cover story that explores animal intelligence, the topic of her upcoming book, ANIMAL WISE, The Thoughts and Emotions of Our Fellow Creatures.  Elizabeth Kolbert selected this article for the Best American Science and Nature Writing 2009 (Houghton Mifflin).

ANIMAL WISE will be published by Random House/Crown in February 2013 in hardcover and electronic form.  Eight foreign editions, and an unabridged audio edition will also be available.

Published work

Animals Wise: The Thoughts and Emotions of Our Fellow Creatures (Forthcoming from Crown Publishing Group); Wildlife Wars, My Fight to Save Africa's Natural Treasures (St. Martin’s Press, September 2001); Blue Nile: Ethiopia's River of Magic and Mystery (National Geographic Books, June 2001); Ancestral Passions, The Leakey Family and the Quest for Humankind's Beginnings (Simon and Schuster, August 1995)


Panelists (VIP Event)

Kevin Finneran

Kevin Finneran

Kevin Finneran has been editor-in-chief of Issues in Science and Technology since 1991. Issues is the quarterly policy journal published by the National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, Institute of M…

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Michael Rosenwald

Michael Rosenwald

Michael Rosenwald—journalist, steak eater… Michael is a staff writer at the Washington Post. He is also a magazine writer whose work has been published in the New Yorker, Esquire, Smithsonian, GQ, BusinessWeek, Popular Sci…

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Ellen Ficklen

Ellen Ficklen

Ellen Ficklen is a senior editor at Health Affairs, where she is the editor of Narrative Matters, the journal’s first-person essay section. She is a co-editor of Narrative Matters: The Power of the Personal Essay in Health…

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Panelists (Public Event)

Christopher Cox

Christopher Cox

Christopher Cox is a senior editor at Harper’s Magazine, where he edits the magazine’s features. Before coming to Harper’s, he was a fiction editor at The Paris Review. Stories and reported pieces he edited have been named…

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Victoria Pope

Victoria Pope

Victoria Pope is the deputy editor of National Geographic magazine and its chief editor for text. Before joining National Geographic in November 2005, she was the executive editor for U.S. News and World Report. Her positi…

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Scott Stossel

Scott Stossel

Scott Stossel is editor of The Atlantic magazine and the author of the award-winning Sarge: The Life and Times of Sargent Shriver, which the Boston Globe called an "extraordinary achievement" and which Publisher's Weekly d…

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Laura Helmuth

Laura Helmuth

Laura Helmuth is the science and health editor for Slate magazine. Previously, she was the senior science editor for Smithsonian magazine and a writer and editor for Science magazine’s news department. She has written for …

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Mark Rotella

Mark Rotella

Mark Rotella is the author of Amore: The Story of Italian American Song and Stolen Figs and Other Adventures in Calabria and wrote the introduction to the classic Christ Stopped at Eboli by Carlo Levi (all published by Far…

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Mentors

Jason Bittel

Jason Bittel

Jason Bittel is a worshipper of the calamine gods. When he’s not fighting off poison ivy, he’s trying to get people riled up about slugs and opossums on his TTTWTP-inspired website, BittelMeThis.com. He has an MFA in Creat…

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Adam Briggle

Adam Briggle

Adam Briggle is Assistant Professor in the Department of Philosophy and Religion Studies and Faculty Fellow in the Center for the Study of Interdisciplinarity at the University of North Texas. His research and teaching foc…

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Ross Carper

Ross Carper

Ross Carper is a writer based in Washington state whose publications include fiction, poetry, and narrative nonfiction. He is the founding editor of Beyond the Bracelet, a web-based literary project that aims to publish an…

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Gwen Ottinger

Gwen Ottinger

Gwen Ottinger has a Ph.D. in Energy and Resources from the University of California, Berkeley, and holds bachelor's degrees in Science, Technology, & Culture and Aerospace Engineering from Georgia Tech. As a graduate stud…

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Rachel Zurer

Rachel Zurer

Rachel Zurer—As an associate editor at Backpacker magazine, Rachel spends her days dreaming up fantastic places to go hiking. She has an MFA in Creative Nonfiction from Goucher College, and her publication and broadcast cr…

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Leslie Rubinkowski

Leslie Rubinkowski

Leslie Rubinkowski is working on a memoir about training to run her first marathon, despite the fact that she'd never run a mile in her life. She is also the author of Impersonating Elvis, a book about another kind of tra…

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PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATORS

Lee Gutkind

Lee Gutkind

Robotics, organ transplantation, end of life stories—and creative nonfiction. Lee Gutkind, recognized by Vanity Fair as “the Godfather behind creative nonfiction,” is the author and editor of more than 25 books and founde…

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David H. Guston

David H. Guston

David H. Guston is Professor of Politics and Global Studies and Co-Director of the Consortium for Science, Policy and Outcomes at Arizona State University. He is also the Principal Investigator and Director of the Center …

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