Finding Inspiration in the Collections

This event is preceded by . Guests are encouraged to attend both, but this reading is open to the public. See the link for more information.

Join us at Milkweed Books to hear Marlene Zuk and Kathryn Nuernberger read, discuss science writing and finding inspiration from museum collections. Students from the workshop will be invited–but not required–to share their writing at the open mic after the reading and conversation.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

MARLENE ZUK is Regents Professor of ecology, evolution, and behavior at the University of Minnesota. She studies the evolution of animal sexual behavior and animal communication. The author of Paleofantasy and Sex on Six Legs, among other works, her latest book is Dancing Cockatoos and the Dead Man’s Test, which was longlisted for the 2023 PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award. She has received the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Science Award, the Edward O. Wilson Naturalist Award, and is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, as well as an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences.

KATHRYN NUERNBERGER is the author of the poetry collections, RUE, The End of Pink and Rag & Bone. She has also written the essay collections The Witch of Eye and Brief Interviews with the Romantic Past. Her awards include the James Laughlin Prize from the Academy of American Poets, an NEA fellowship, and “notable” essays in the Best American series. She has received fellowships from the H. J. Andrews Research Forest, the Bakken Museum of Electricity in Life, and the American Antiquarian Society for her creative writing about science and the history of science. She is a University of Minnesota RIO Artist-in-Residence — inspired by Marlene Zuk’s research on the Pacific field cricket and its parasitic fly she is writing poems about cricket behaviors, songs, and the nature of togetherness. HELD: Essays in Aftermaths, a collection of flash essays about symbiotic mutualisms and ways of being together, will be published by Sarabande Books in November 2025.

Host or Publisher Milkweed Books