David Taylor is a Professor of Sustainability at Stony Brook University. His writing crosses disciplinary boundaries and genres—poetry, creative nonfiction, scholarship, and science/technical writing; however, at the core of his work always is the concern for environmental sustainability and community. His poetry includes a book Praying Up the Sun (Pecan Grove Press, 2008) and a chapbook The Log from The Sea of Cortez: A Poem Series (Wings Press, 2013) based on John Steinbeck’s 1940 collecting trip with biologist Ed Ricketts.
He has published poetry extensively in the United States and internationally. Steve Wolverton and he co-edited and contributed to a collection of essays about an interdisciplinary project on Mesa Verde archaeological sites and their representations to the public, titled Sushi in Cortez: Essays from the Edge of Academia (University of Utah Press, 2015). Also, he wrote an extensive introduction and edited “… a man of high character”: The Letters, Lectures, and Essays of Dr. John Perkins Barratt (University of South Carolina Press, 2015). Barratt was a mid-nineteenth-century naturalist and physician responsible for much of the early conservation movement in South Carolina. Taylor’s natural history writing and creative nonfiction includes Lawson’s Fork: Headwaters to the Confluence (Hub City Press, 2000), a personal narrative on the history and natural history of Lawson’s Fork, Spartanburg’s local river. He edited an anthology, Pride of Place: A Contemporary Anthology of Texas Nature Writing (UNT Press, 2006) and was interviewed about this book on NPR on Earth Day.
Most recently, David served as lead faculty on a Summer 2014 study abroad class “Cuba and the Complexities of Sustainability.” He organized faculty from biology, geography, and film to take an interdisciplinary approach to issues of sustainability in a uniquely important place. He returned to Cuba in the fall of 2014 to work with a film crew and Artes Escenicas, documenting Escambray, a performing arts group combining theatre and environmental outreach in rural areas in the mountains outside of Sancti Spiritus.
CONTRIBUTIONS TO HUMANS & NATURE:
City Creatures Blog posts:
- The Bat Encounter
- A Summer’s Paddle around Long Island: First Strokes & A Trip Beyond
- What the White Panther Meant to Me
- Home(page) on the Range?
- Down Clear Creek
- Uncertain Memories
Articles in Minding Nature:
- Taking a New Path
From Minding Nature’s Fall 2019, Volume 12, Number 3 issue. - Community and Performance: A Cuban Theatre Group Rethinks Environmental Outreach
From Minding Nature’s Winter 2016, Volume 9, Number 1 issue.
Noteworthy Links:
- David Taylor’s NPR Interview
Listen to Dave Taylor talk about his book Pride of Place.
