Paula MacKay writes about wildlife, wild places, and people who are passionate about nature.

Writing is an adventure.

For years, I considered my craft to be an extension of my advocacy work—a way to give back to the whales, wolverines, and other wild creatures who have given so much to me. Joy. Hope. A rewarding career in conservation. Even my marriage to the wonder-full ecologist with whom I’ve studied terrestrial carnivores for the past two decades.

In my various roles working with nonprofits and as an independent consultant, I’ve written many science-informed articles, book chapters, press releases, grant proposals, and website pages. I also served as managing editor for Noninvasive Survey Methods for Carnivores, an ambitious techniques volume for carnivore biologists.

But over time, I wanted to do more with my writing—to try to help inspire compassion for wildlife as fellow citizens of the Earth. Such transformative writing, I told myself, would require more creativity and less theory and data. As Jack Turner put it in The Abstract Wild, “The necessary work of science produces information, but what we need are stories, stories that produce love.”

So in 2012, I went back to school to earn an MFA in creative nonfiction (shout-out to Pacific Lutheran University!) There, I discovered that transformational writing about wildness would require a transformation in me as a writer. Not only would I need to merge my love for language with my passion for wildlife, but I would also have to probe the true meaning of wildness within myself.

The adventure continues. I’m trying to let the trail take me where it will.

To read more about wildlife and my journey as a writer, please visit my blog, Wild Prose—and see my interview with Ashland Creek Press about writing for animals. Listen to my podcast interview about rewilding on How It Looks From Here.

Paula MacKay is one of the most important literary voices for rewilding. —Dr. William Lynn, Research Scientist, George Perkins Marsh Institute at Clark University