Gary Ferguson
Nature, Science, and Adventure Writer, Professional Speaker
Biography
Author Gary Ferguson first answered the call to adventure at age 12, loading up his purple sting-ray bike with camping gear and riding with his older brother through the central Midwest. By age 18, bicycles had given way to boxcars and backpacks, as he made his way across North America by rail and by thumb – as often than not heading west, and heading for mountains.
At 25, Ferguson plunged full-time into the freelance writing life. Soon thereafter his work found a home in the national media – both his personal profiles of American nature, as well as a wide range of social and environmental stories from Europe, Africa and North America.
Formerly an interpretive naturalist for the U.S. Forest Service, Gary is the author of 16 books on nature, science and history. His recent work, Hawks Rest (National Geographic), became the first book in history to win nonfiction Book of The Year from both the Pacific Northwest and Mountains and Plains booksellers associations. He was the 2002 Seigel Scholar at the School of Political Science at Washington University, St. Louis; in January 2007, he had a five-month tenure as Distinguished Visiting Writer at the University of Montana. Gary's nature and science-based essays can be heard on National Public Radio affiliates throughout the country.
Writing
Over the past twenty years Gary has written for a wide variety of publications, including Vanity Fair, the Los Angeles Times, Outside, and Men's Journal.
Ferguson believes that strong writing grows out of strong experience. Hence, Gary has hiked and skied thousands of miles through high deserts and forests, canoed countless miles of wild rivers, and explored some of the remotest corners of the earth. He trekked 500 miles through Yellowstone to write Walking Down the Wild, spent a season in the field at a wilderness therapy program to write Shouting at the Sky, spent a year in the backcountry following the first 14 wolves released into Yellowstone National Park for The Yellowstone Wolves: The First Year, and bicycled with his wife Jane from Canada to Mexico for his very first published book, Freewheeling. "What I'm looking for," he says, "what I'm celebrating, is the power of story. Tales of people finding their voices. Of life outside the box. And always, stories of the tracks nature leaves in the human heart."
Select Awards and Honors
2005 Montana Book of the Year for Decade of the Wolf
Mountains & Plains and Pacific Northwest Booksellers Associations Nonfiction book of the Year for Hawks Rest
Lowell Thomas Award for The Sylvan Path
Seigel Scholar, School of Political Science, Washington University, St. Louis
William Kittredge Distinguished Visiting Writer, University of Montana, Spring 2007
For more information or to book a speaking event,
please contact Anita Anderson: anita@wildwords.net or 415-309-0939