McKay Jenkins: The Maryland Master Naturalist's Handbook (with Lia Purpura)

The Ivy is delighted to host McKay Jenkins in conversation with Lia Purpura-- two writers who have long joined the natural world with the written one in their creative work-- to spotlight Jenkins' new volume, The Maryland Master Naturalist's Handbook.

This book illustrates the deep connections among the state's history, its people, and the land they have long inhabited. It journeys through forests, rivers, and mountains while uncovering the complex interplay of flora, fauna, and human communities.

This volume serves as the primary text for the Maryland Master Naturalist training course and encourages a broader audience to engage in ecological restoration and conservation efforts. Whether you're a budding naturalist or an experienced environmentalist, this book will deepen your understanding of Maryland's ecological systems and empower you to contribute to the preservation of its natural beauty.

Click here to order the book!

McKay Jenkins is a writer, professor, restoration ecologist and urban farmer. He has published nine books and many articles and essays about the natural world and social justice. His new book The Maryland Naturalist (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2024) is a collection of natural history essays that will serve as the primary text for the Maryland State Master Naturalist Certification Program. His book The Delaware Naturalist Handbook (University of Delaware Press, 2020, co-edited with Susan Barton), serves as the primary text for the Delaware State Master Naturalist Certification Program.
Jenkins other books include Food Fight: GMOs and the Future of the American Diet (Avery, 2017); Poison Spring: The Secret History of Pollution and the EPA (co-authored with Evaggelos Vallianatos) (Bloomsbury, 2014); and ContamiNation: My Quest to Survive in a Toxic World (Avery, 2016), originally published as What’s Gotten Into Us: Staying Healthy in a Toxic World (Random House, 2011), which chronicled his investigation into the myriad synthetic chemicals we encounter in our daily lives, and the growing body of evidence about the harm these chemicals do to our bodies and the environment.
Jenkins holds degrees from Amherst, Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism, and Princeton, where he received a PhD in English. A former staff writer for the Atlanta Constitution, he has also written for Outside, Orion, The New Republic, and many other publications. Jenkins is currently the Cornelius Tilghman Professor of English, Journalism and Environmental Humanities at UD, where he has won the University Excellence in Teaching Award and both the Excellence in Teaching Award and the Outstanding Scholarship Award from the College of Arts and Sciences. He oversees the Rock Rose Food Justice Project, an urban farm in Baltimore, where he lives with his family.

Lia Purpura is the author of ten collections, including essays, poems, and translations. A finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for On Looking (essays), her awards include Guggenheim, NEA, and Fulbright Fellowships, as well as five Pushcart Prizes. Her work appears in The New Yorker, The New Republic, Orion, The Paris Review, The Georgia Review, Agni, Emergence, and elsewhere. Purpura has served as Writer in Residence at The University of Maryland, Baltimore County and Loyola University; other teaching venues include the low-residency Rainier Writing Workshop, the Breadloaf Writers’ Conference, the University of Iowa’s Nonfiction MFA program, as well as workshops at the Montgomery County Correctional Facility, and the Glenwood Life Recovery Center. Her newest collections are It Shouldn’t Have Been Beautiful (poems) and All the Fierce Tethers (essays).

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