I am lucky to have been able to travel all over the world, and many of those trips were taken in my 20s and 30s. So I’ve been able to draw on them for my whole career. And it allows me to see the animals firsthand and to really understand how they thrive in their environment, how they move, what they eat. When you see that firsthand, it really stays with you. And that can inspire me to write about certain topics. It certainly will infuse what I’m writing with a kind of vibrancy that I think is exciting. And another thing about those trips is the trip that I took to Africa and the Galapagos Islands, they were run by the American Museum of Natural History and they were intended for scientists, and they let me be part of it because I do have a science degree, but I don’t have a PhD.
But they thought I brought kind of a nice diversity to the group in terms of the backgrounds of the different people. But what that means is that I have made these strong connections with scientists that I can then draw on as I’m doing research, I can call them up and say, hey, I was just wondering about this area of research, and could you tell me a little bit more about it? Or I could say, I’m writing a book on whale falls. Do you know someone who would be the perfect expert for me to talk to? And so often those relationships that I’ve built over time that are founded in those research trips have blossomed and grown into other relationships too.
