Carolyn Finney, PhD is a storyteller, author, and cultural geographer. A Fulbright Scholar, a Canon National Parks Science Scholar, and recipient of a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship in Environmental Studies, she has served on the U.S. National Parks Advisory Board, and has held positions at Wellesley College, the University of California, Berkeley , as well as the University of Kentucky. She was awarded the Alexander and Ilse Melamid Medal from the American Geographical Society. She has published pieces in BESIDE, The Guardian, and the New York Times and has essays published in the anthologies Nature Swagger: Stories and Visions of Black Joy in the Outdoors (edited by Rue Mapp, November, 2022) and A Darker Wilderness: Black Nature Writing from Soil to Stars (edited by Erin Sharkey). Her first book, Black Faces, White Spaces: Reimagining the Relationship of African Americans to the Great Outdoors, was released in 2014.

Mentioned in this episode:

• Milkweed Editions
• A Darker Wilderness: Black Nature Writing from Soil to Stars, by Erin Sharkey
• The Artist’s Way
• The Acreage at Osceola
• Horst Rechelbacher
• Priscilla Solis Ybarra
• Hayden Planetarium
• Sylvia’s
• An Inconvenient Truth
• LGBTQ culture in the Philippines
• Becoming Little Shell: A Landless Indian’s Journey Home, by Chris La Tray

Prompt for Writing and/or Living

What are the rules you imagine in a place that you’ve spent time in, that you’ve visited, but most importantly, in a place that you’ve loved?