Maddalena Bearzi is the author of Stranded: Finding Nature in Uncertain Times and Dolphin Confidential: Confessions of a Field Biologist, and she is the coauthor of Beautiful Minds: The Parallel Lives of Great Apes and Dolphins. Bearzi is president and cofounder of Ocean Conservation Society. She holds a PhD in biology and a postdoctorate from UCLA, and she has been involved in studying marine mammals, with a conservation bias, since 1990. Her research on dolphins and whales off California represents one of the longest investigations worldwide, and she has published several scientific peer-reviewed papers. Her work and books have been covered by CNN, NPR, KPCC, Al Jazeera America, the Hallmark Channel, the Los Angeles Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Huffington Post, and American Scientist, among others. Bearzi has also been a writer for numerous media, including National Geographic. Born and raised in Italy, she now lives in Los Angeles with her husband and dog.

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To read the full interview, visit Fiction Advocate and be sure to check out the previous installments of Non-Fiction about Non-Humans with Bethany Brookshire, Sabrina Imbler, Erica Berry, Tove Danovich, Karen Fine, Jaime Green, Cat Warren, Gloria Dickie, Karen Pinchin, and Rosanna Xia!

The post Non-Fiction about Non-Humans: Maddalena Bearzi appeared first on E.B. Bartels.

Cat Warren is the author of What the Dog Knows and What the Dog Knows: Young Readers Edition, books about training her German Shepherd, Solo, as a cadaver dog. She is professor emerita at North Carolina State University, where she taught science journalism, editing, and creative nonfiction courses. Before starting her academic career, Warren worked for newspapers across the United States, reporting on crime, poverty, and politics, from California to Wyoming to Connecticut. Warren lives in downtown Durham, North Carolina, with her husband, David Auerbach, a retired professor of philosophy at North Carolina State University, and their two dogs, Rev and Brio.

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To read the full interview, visit Fiction Advocate, and be sure to check out the previous installments of Non-Fiction about Non-Humans with Bethany Brookshire, Sabrina Imbler, Erica Berry, Tove Danovich, Karen Fine, and Jaime Green!

The post Non-Fiction about Non-Humans: Cat Warren appeared first on E.B. Bartels.

Dr. Karen Fine is a holistic veterinarian who writes about the human-animal bond, holistic veterinary medicine, pet loss, grief, and narrative medicine. She owned and operated her own house-call practice, Fine Veterinary House Calls, for twenty-five years. She is the author of the New York Times bestselling memoir The Other Family Doctor: A Veterinarian Explores What Animals Can Teach Us About Love, Life and Mortality and the veterinary textbook Narrative Medicine in Veterinary Practice: Improving Client Communication, Patient Care, and Veterinary Well-Being. Fine also co-edits Reflections, an online journal on veterinary narrative medicine, and has written for TheNew York Times, the Brevity blog, Bark magazine, and Inside Your Cat’s Mind. She is a graduate of the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University and Brandeis University, and is certified in veterinary acupuncture through the International Veterinary Acupuncture Society. Fine currently practices small animal medicine in Central Massachusetts, where she lives with her husband and son and an assortment of rescue animals.

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To read the full interview, visit Fiction Advocate, and be sure to check out the previous installments of Non-Fiction about Non-Humans with Bethany Brookshire, Sabrina Imbler, Erica Berry, and Tove Danovich!

The post Non-Fiction about Non-Humans: Karen Fine appeared first on E.B. Bartels.

I am thrilled to share I have a new essay published in Off Assignment as part of their Letter to a Stranger series. Read “To the Iditarod Man” here, and also check out my “Behind the Essay” interview for the Off Assignment newsletter as well! Thank you so much to editors Colleen Kinder and Aube Rey Lescure for giving this essay a home.

The post “To the Iditarod Man” on Off Assignment! appeared first on E.B. Bartels.

And bonus content: Little E.B. and Little Richie with said dead dogs! From left to right: Gus, Gwen, and Cocoa. RIP.

The post Dead Dog Love Story in Thimble Lit Mag! appeared first on E.B. Bartels.

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Photograph: © Isa Leshko

For a long time I was a photographer in addition to being a writer. Images and words always went hand-in-hand for me, and I found that often photographs influenced how I thought about writing and that often writing influenced how I thought about photography. While I don’t make images of my own anymore with any regularity, I still love visiting museums and galleries and reading art books, and black and white photographs, especially those made with large format cameras and printed in silver gelatin, are still the ones that always grab at my heart.

I was drawn to Isa Leshko‘s images for these reasons, and because her photos are of animals, which of course makes sense, because I am all about animals. But reading Isa’s book Allowed to Grow Old: Portraits of Elderly Animals from Farm Sanctuaries, published this past spring by University of Chicago Press, was truly a life-changing experience. Her images made me reconsider how we as people think about aging, and how getting old can feel like a burden, but it is actually quite a gift. Many animals — both human and non-human — never make it to their elderly years.

This essay I wrote inspired by Allowed to Grow Old is up now on Entropy Mag. I hope you read it, and take some time to look at Isa’s images. Her work is transformative.

The post “The Privilege of Old Age” in Entropy Mag appeared first on E.B. Bartels.

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I am really excited to have this essay up today on The Millions because I am absolutely obsessed with Sy Montgomery’s new memoir. Her book, How to Be a Good Creature: A Memoir in Thirteen Animals, comes out on September 25th, and everyone should buy it, read it, and follow its advice. (Don’t worry, there will be plenty of copies available at Newtonville Books, where How to Be a Good Creature also happens to be my most recent staff pick!)

The post “Sy Montgomery Wants Us to Embrace Our Inner Animal” on The Millions! appeared first on E.B. Bartels.

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Meghan Flaherty is the author of Tango Lessons, a personal history of Argentine tango, that was published in June 2018 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Flaherty received her MFA from Columbia University School of the Arts in literary nonfiction. Her essays and translations have appeared in Psychology Today and The Iowa Review, and online at Catapult, The New York Times, The Rumpus, Asymptote, and elsewhere. She lives with her husband, baby, and rescue mastiff in northern California, and enjoys purchasing vegetables in Romance languages around the world. 

The post Non-Fiction by Non-Men: Meghan Flaherty appeared first on E.B. Bartels.

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Mandy Len Catron is the author of How To Fall In Love With Anyone: A Memoir in Essays. Originally from Appalachian Virginia, Catron now lives in Vancouver, British Columbia. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, The Washington Post, Glamour, The Rumpus, and The Walrus, as well as literary journals and anthologies. Her essay for the New York Times Modern Love series (“To Fall in Love with Anyone, Do This”) was one of the most popular articles published by the New York Times in 2015. Catron writes about love and love stories at The Love Story Project, and she teaches English and creative writing at the University of British Columbia. You can follow Catron on Twitter (@LenMandy), and on Instagram (@LenMandy) to see her drawings and photos of her dog, Roscoe.

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Three, wrapped in bags, rest —
while their family hikes through ten
thousand torii.

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Sannomiya, Kobe

The tiniest pups
for sale! Too bad they cost three
hundred-thousand yen.

That’s like $3,000. Dogs are criminally expensive in Japan.

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Takeshita Dori, Harajuku, Tokyo

In Harajuku
everyone is so trendy,
even dogs wear shades.

They’re not regular dogs, they’re cool dogs.

The post Haiku for a Dog I Don’t Know, Japan Edition appeared first on E.B. Bartels.