A native of Edgefield, South Carolina, J. Drew Lanham is the author of The Home Place: Memoirs of a Colored Man’s Love Affair with Nature, which received the Reed Award from the Southern Environmental Law Center and the Southern Book Prize, and was a finalist for the John Burroughs Medal. He is a birder, naturalist, and hunter-conservationist who has published essays and poetry in publications including Orion, Audubon, Flycatcher, and Wilderness, and in several anthologies, including The Colors of Nature, State of the Heart, Bartram’s Living Legacy, and Carolina Writers at Home. An Alumni Distinguished Professor of Wildlife Ecology and Master Teacher at Clemson University, he and his family live in the Upstate of South Carolina, a soaring hawk’s downhill glide from the southern Appalachian escarpment that the Cherokee once called the Blue Wall.
J. Drew Lanham

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J. Drew Lanham Answers the Orion Questionnaire
In which we get to know our favorite writers better by exploring the sacred and mundane. Renowned ornithologist, wildlife ecology professor, author, and Orion contributing editor J. Drew Lanham is here Continue reading
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The Grounded Age
The Anthropocene is officially grounded. No, this warning does not pertain to those marvels of science engendering time aloft by engineered finagling of lift, thrust, or flotation—which would include balloons, zeppelins, Continue reading
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Hope and Feathers
Africa is a place we all have in common. It is the widely acknowledged cradle of humankind, as most anthropologists agree that our hominid ancestors likely evolved there. So an Evolutionary Continue reading
Enumeration

9 Rules for the Woke Birdwatcher
Lower your binoculars. See bird and person in the full context of their being, feathers or skin. Continue reading
Earth Day at 50
Wish Thrush
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Forever Gone
How bird lives and Black lives intertwine in the story of the Carolina Parakeet. Continue reading
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9 Rules for the Black Birdwatcher
1. Be prepared to be confused with the other black birder. Yes, there are only two of you at the bird festival. Yes, you’re wearing a name tag and are six Continue reading