Sharman Apt Russell

I live in the magical realism of the American Southwest. Pretty much, every day is wonderful, although I don't always notice that. Without doubt: I need to be more alert. As a writer, I have adhered to Joseph Campbell's advice to follow my bliss, writing about whatever interests me, from butterflies to archaeology, pantheism to childhood malnutrition.

A few years ago, I was very pleased that my Diary of a Citizen Scientist: Chasing Tiger Beetles and Other New Ways of Engaging the World (Oregon State University Press) was given the John Burroughs Medal for Distinguished Nature Writing. The awards started in the 1920s and recipients include Aldo Leopold, Rachel Carson, and Roger Tory Peterson. To be included in such a list!

Citizen science is an amazing world. You can transform yourself in a thousand ways, studying monarch butterflies or listening to whale songs or classifying galaxies. I ended up obsessed with tiger beetles, compelled by a entomologist who once told me with some delight, "Our ignorance is profound! You could spend a week studying some obscure insect and you would then know more about that insect than anyone else on the planet."

My next nonfiction is Within Our Grasp: Childhood Malnutrition Worldwide and the Revolution Taking Place to End It (Pantheon, April, 2021). This book connects two of my longtime interests: hunger and the environment. My most recent published books are eco-fictions. Knocking on Heaven's Door is a speculative novel about a Paleoterrific future, winner of the Arizona Authors Association Award and the New Mexico/Arizona Book Award. Teresa of the New World is a young adult novel set in the dreamscape of the sixteenth century American Southwest, winner of the Arizona Authors Association Award and finalist in the WILLA Award and New Mexico/Arizona Book Awards.

For more information, and other news, please go to my Facebook author page Sharman Apt Russell. Instagram. Or my website, which is simply my name sharmanaptrussell.

A little bit of bio: Raised in the suburbs of Phoenix, Arizona, in 1981 I settled in southern New Mexico as a "back to the lander" and have stayed there ever since. I am a professor emeritus in the Humanities Department at Western New Mexico University in Silver City, as well as an associate faculty at Antioch University in Los Angeles. I received my MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Montana and my B.S. in Conservation and Natural Resources from the University of California, Berkeley. I have two children who are grown up. Sadly for me but quite naturally, they left home.

As a teacher, my philosophy is simple: my goal is to increase a student's authority as a writer. I am here to encourage and support that authority. I can help students better revise their work. I can teach students how to talk about writing with other writers. I can help them feel more centered in who they are as writers and why they write. I can serve as an editor and mentor. I can model a writer's life. As well as teaching at Antioch, I have been a visiting writer at universities and colleges across the country.