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My recent book, The Draining of the Fens, is about the drive to transform a vast wetland in eastern England into arable farmland during the seventeenth century. Today, England’s Fens are among the most fertile farmland in all of northern Europe, but the region...

I have always been fascinated with nature, and at the same time, I have always loved art. The two for me have gone hand in hand as far back as I can remember. Growing up I was constantly out looking for turtles and snakes, or I was fishing. If I wasn’t out...

Few things are as precious and important in our lives as water. What other material substance has been classified as a human right? Does the universal daily need for water mean, however, that it must always be in public hands, or should private companies be...

Newspapers and other periodicals played an important role in the life of Victorian Britain, Ireland, and the British Empire. For the past 50 years, the journal Victorian Periodicals Review (VPR) has published research on the editorial and publishing history of...

Numbers, numbers, everywhere, nor any figures to cite. In my last post, I talked about Amazon buy buttons and the inner workings of a book’s availability. In my experience, availability is usually the number one concern for authors and publishers. Once the...

I want to address my Republican and conservative friends for a second—really anyone that is sick and tired of all this talk about climate change. I’d like to let you in on a little secret: a surefire way to piss off the tree-hugging conservationists that annoy...

My history of Tourette syndrome (A Cursing Brain, 1999) involved observing pediatric patients at a university clinic. I noticed that the patient population seemed to have an unusually high proportion of left-handers. Being left-handed myself, I wondered...

Silence deafened the laboratory. The raging spring storm outside finally penetrated the transformers powering the west side of campus, stealing life from inside the science complex. In one instance, the monotonous sounds of motors, fans, and compressors were...

Four times a year, Children's Literature Association Quarterly publishes first-rate scholarship in children's literature studies. Two recent issues have taken on questions of genre in children's and young adult literature. Editor Claudia Nelson, Professor of...

A lawmaker with conviction is a difficult person to persuade. It’s tempting to think that the reason they don’t do what you think they should is simply that they don’t know enough. They don’t know what you know. So you research a topic, live with it for months...