Diane Ackerman | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | October 7, 1948 |
| Occupation | Author |
| Nationality | American |
| Education | Pennsylvania State University (BA) Cornell University (MA, MFA, PhD) |
| Website | |
| www | |
Diane Ackerman (born October 7, 1948) is an American poet, essayist, and naturalist known for her wide-ranging curiosity and poetic explorations of the natural world. [1]
Ackerman received a Bachelor of Arts in English from Pennsylvania State University and a Master of Arts, Master of Fine Arts and Ph.D. from Cornell University. Among the members of her dissertation committee was Carl Sagan, an astronomer and the creator of the Cosmos television series. [2] She has taught at a number of universities, including Columbia and Cornell. [3]
Her essays have appeared in The New York Times , Smithsonian , Parade , The New Yorker , National Geographic , and many other journals. [4] Her research has taken her to such diverse locales as Mata Atlantic in Brazil (working with endangered golden lion tamarins), Patagonia (right whales), Hawaii (humpback whales), California (tagging monarch butterflies at their overwintering sites), French Frigate Shoals (monk seals), Toroshima, Japan (short-tailed albatross), Texas (with Bat Conservation International), the Amazon rainforest, and Antarctica (penguins). [5] [6] In 1986, she was a semi-finalist for NASA's Journalist-in-Space Project [7] —this program was cancelled after the Space Shuttle Challenger (carrying Christa McAuliffe as a payload specialist with the Teacher in Space Project) disaster. [8] A molecule has been named after her—dianeackerone—a crocodilian sex pheromone. [9]
A collection of her manuscripts, writings and papers (the Diane Ackerman Papers, 1971–1997—Collection No. 6299) is housed at the Cornell University Library. [10]
Her works of nonfiction include, most recently, The Human Age: The World Shaped by Us, which celebrates nature, human ingenuity, and explores how we've become the dominant force of change on the planet; [11] [12] her memoir One Hundred Names for Love, about stroke, aphasia, and healing; [13] [14] Dawn Light, a poetic meditation on dawn and awakening; [15] [16] The Zookeeper's Wife, narrative nonfiction set in Warsaw during World War II, a tale of people, animals, and subversive acts of compassion; [17] [18] An Alchemy of Mind about the marvels and mysteries of the brain, based on modern neuroscience; [19] Cultivating Delight, a natural history of her garden; [20] Deep Play, which considers play, creativity, and our need for transcendence; [21] A Slender Thread, about her work as a crisis line counselor; [22] [23] The Rarest of the Rare and The Moon by Whale Light, in which she explores the plight and fascination of endangered animals; [24] [25] A Natural History of Love, a literary tour of love's many facets; [26] On Extended Wings, her memoir of flying; [27] and A Natural History of the Senses, an exploration of the five senses. [28] [29]
Her poetry has been published in leading literary journals, and in collections, including Jaguar of Sweet Laughter: New and Selected Poems. [30] Her first book of poetry, The Planets, A Cosmic Pastoral was gifted by Carl Sagan to Timothy Leary while Leary was imprisoned. [31] Her verse play, Reverse Thunder, celebrates the passionate and tragic life of the 17th century nun, and fellow poet and naturalist, Juana Inés de la Cruz. [32] Ackerman also writes nature books for children. [33]
A movie adaptation of Ackerman's book, The Zookeeper's Wife , starring Jessica Chastain as Antonina Żabińska, was released in the US on March 31, 2017. [34] More photos of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of The Zookeeper's Wife may be seen at the website called "The House Under the Crazy Star". [35]
In 1995, Ackerman hosted a five-part Nova miniseries, Mystery of the Senses , based on her book, A Natural History of the Senses . [36] On Extended Wings was adapted for the stage by Norma Jean Giffin, and was performed at the William Redfield Theater in New York City (1987). [37] A musical adaptation (by Paul Goldstaub) of her dramatic poem, Reverse Thunder, was performed at Old Dominion University (1992). [38]
In 2015, Ackerman's The Human Age won the National Outdoor Book Award in the Natural History Literature category [39] and PEN New England's Henry David Thoreau Prize for nature writing. [40] In 2012, she was a finalist for both a Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Critics Circle Award for One Hundred Names for Love. [41] [42] The Zookeeper's Wife received an Orion Book Award in 2008. [43] She has received a D. Lit from Kenyon College, Guggenheim Fellowship, John Burroughs Nature Award, Lavan Poetry Prize, and has been honored as a Literary Lion of the New York Public Library. [44] Ackerman has had three New York Times bestsellers: The Human Age (2014), The Zookeeper's Wife (2008), and A Natural History of the Senses (1990). [45] [46] [47] She is a Fellow of the New York Institute for the Humanities.
Ackerman was married to the novelist Paul West (1930–2015). [48] She lives in Ithaca, New York. [49]
The Great Affair
The great affair, the love affair with life,
is to live as variously as possible,
to groom one's curiosity like a high-spirited thoroughbred,
climb aboard, and gallop over the thick, sun-struck hills every day..
It began in mystery, and it will end in mystery,
but what a savage and beautiful country lies in between.
— Diane Ackerman, "found poetry" from A Natural History of the Senses [50]
Ann Druyan is an American documentary producer and director specializing in the communication of science. She co-wrote the 1980 PBS documentary series Cosmos, hosted by Carl Sagan, whom she married in 1981. She is the creator, producer, and writer of the 2014 sequel, Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey and its sequel series, Cosmos: Possible Worlds, as well as the book of the same name. She directed episodes of both series.
Carl Edward Sagan was an American astronomer, planetary scientist, and science communicator. His best known scientific contribution is his research on the possibility of extraterrestrial life, including experimental demonstration of the production of amino acids from basic chemicals by exposure to light. He assembled the first physical messages sent into space, the Pioneer plaque and the Voyager Golden Record, which were universal messages that could potentially be understood by any extraterrestrial intelligence that might find them. He argued in favor of the hypothesis, which has since been accepted, that the high surface temperatures of Venus are the result of the greenhouse effect.
Mary Jane Oliver was an American poet who won the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize. She found inspiration for her work in nature and had a lifelong habit of solitary walks in the wild. Her poetry is characterized by a sincere wonderment and profound connection with the environment, conveyed in unadorned language and simple yet striking imagery. In 2007, she was declared to be the country's best-selling poet.
Nikola Jean Caro is a New Zealand film, television, and music video director and screenwriter. Her 2002 film Whale Rider was critically praised and won a number of awards at international film festivals. She directed the 2020 live action version of Disney's Mulan, making her the second female and the second New Zealand director hired by Disney to direct a film budgeted at over $100 million. Caro's works ranged from music videos, commercials, television dramas, and films, etc.
Aimee Nezhukumatathil is an American poet and essayist. Nezhukumatathil draws upon her Filipina and Malayali Indian background to give her perspective on love, loss, and land.
Paul Noden West was a British-born American novelist, poet, and essayist. He was born in Eckington, Derbyshire in England to Alfred and Mildred (Noden) West. Before his death, he resided in Ithaca, New York, with his wife Diane Ackerman, a writer, poet, and naturalist. West is the author of more than 50 books.
A Natural History of the Senses is a 1990 non-fiction book by American author, poet, and naturalist Diane Ackerman. In this book, Ackerman examines both the science of how the different senses work, and the varied means by which different cultures have sought to stimulate the senses. The book was the inspiration for the five-part Nova miniseries Mystery of the Senses (1995) in which Ackerman appeared as the presenter.
The Warsaw Zoological Garden, known simply as the Warsaw Zoo, is a scientific zoo located alongside the Vistula River in Warsaw, Poland. Opened in 1928, the zoo covers about 40 hectares in central Warsaw, and sees over 700,000 visitors annually, making it one of the most popular zoos in Poland. It is home to over 11,000 animals representing more than 500 species.
Mystery of the Senses is a five-part Nova miniseries, based on the book A Natural History of the Senses by Diane Ackerman, who also presents the documentary. Each episode covers one of the traditional five senses: hearing, sight, smell, taste, and touch. The series premiered on PBS on February 19, 1995.
The Zookeeper's Wife is a non-fiction book written by the poet and naturalist Diane Ackerman. Drawing on the diary of Antonina Żabińska, unpublished in English, it recounts the true story of how Antonina and her husband, Jan Żabiński, director of the Warsaw Zoo, saved the lives of 300 Jews who had been imprisoned in the Warsaw Ghetto following the German invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939. The book was first published in 2007 by W. W. Norton.
Maria Popova is a Bulgarian-born, American-based essayist, book author, poet, and writer of literary and arts commentary and cultural criticism that has found wide appeal both for her writing and for the visual stylistics that accompany it.
Antonina Maria Żabińska, néeErdman, was a Polish writer connected, through her husband Jan Żabiński, with the Warsaw Zoo.
Aaron Becker is an American writer and illustrator of children's books. He is best known for his wordless children's book Journey, which received positive reviews in The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal and a Caldecott Honor in 2014.
Brief Candle in the Dark: My Life in Science is the second volume of the autobiographical memoir by British evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins. It was published in English in September 2015.
The Zookeeper's Wife is a 2017 American war drama film directed by Niki Caro and written by Angela Workman. It is based on Diane Ackerman's non-fiction book of the same name. The film tells the true story of how Jan and Antonina Żabiński rescued hundreds of Polish Jews from the Germans by hiding them in their Warsaw zoo during World War II. It stars Jessica Chastain, Johan Heldenbergh, Daniel Brühl and Michael McElhatton.
Joni Mitchell: In Her Own Words is a book from conversations of musician Joni Mitchell compiled by broadcast journalist, musician, and author Malka Marom. The book is composed of conversations recorded on three separate occasions, between the years 1973 and 2012. The book was published by ECW Press in 2014.
Joshua Jelly-Schapiro is an American geographer and writer. Among his books are Island People: The Caribbean and the World (2016), Names of New York (2021) and, with the writer Rebecca Solnit, Nonstop Metropolis: A New York City Atlas (2016). Jelly-Schapiro is a regular contributor to The New York Review of Books. He has also written for The New Yorker, Harper's Magazine, The Believer, Artforum, Transition, and The Nation.
"School Prayer" is a poem written by American poet and naturalist Diane Ackerman; it is the first of 50 poems in Ackerman's book I Praise My Destroyer, which was published in 1998. "School Prayer" is a pledge to protect and revere nature, in every form it may appear. The poem was recited and discussed by Garrison Keillor on his daily podcast The Writer's Almanac.
Mars and the Mind of Man is a non-fiction book chronicling a public symposium at the California Institute of Technology on November 12, 1971. The panel consisted of five luminaries of science, literature, and journalism: Ray Bradbury; Arthur C. Clarke; Bruce C. Murray; Carl Sagan and Walter Sullivan. These five are the authors of this book. The symposium occurred shortly before the Mariner 9 space probe entered orbit around Mars. The book was published in 1973 by Harper and Row of New York.
The Last Cuentista is a middle-grade dystopian novel by Donna Barba Higuera, published October 12, 2021 by Levine Querido. The story follows Petra Peña who, along with her family and a few hundred others, leave Earth to continue the human race after a comet strikes the planet. After awaking on a new planet, Petra is the only one who remembers Earth and must use storytelling to keep her people's history alive. It was published in British English under the title The Last Storyteller in 2022.
I didn't want to be a scientist. I just felt that the universe wasn't knowable from only one perspective. I wanted to be able to go exploring: follow my curiosity in both worlds. So I had a poet on my doctoral committee. And I had a scientist -- Carl Sagan. And I had someone in comparative literature. Essentially, they all ran interference for me so that I could -- ultimately -- write a dissertation that was about the metaphysical mind: science and art and be teaching and be in school while I was writing books.
