Matthew Bettelheim: Wildlife Confessional

Cover: Wildlife

Cover: Wildlife

THE WILDLIFE CONFESSIONAL—
KICK IT IN THE ICE HOLE AND OTHER STORIES

The Wildlife Society Western Section
Eds. Matthew P. Bettelheim (NASW Member) and
Thomas A. Roberts, illustrated by Ivan Parr
Quill, Dec. 10, 2019, $16.99
ISBN-10: 194784878X; ISBN-13: 978-1947848788

Bettelheim reports:

I first conceived The Wildlife Confessional in 2014 after running into fellow local writer/wildlife biologist Thomas A. Roberts at an event for our local chapter of The Wildlife Society (TWS). I had been kicking around the idea for an anthology after reading Tom’s self-effacing anthologies Painting the Cows and Adventures in Conservation several years earlier, so it seemed right to approach him as a co-collaborator.

Matthew Bettelheim

Matthew Bettelheim

At the time, I had been researching what would become the titular story, “Kick It in the Ice Hole,” by ground-truthing a tall tale a professor once recounted to me about a bear biologist kicking a purportedly tranquilized polar bear in the heinie. That rabbit hole eventually led me to ghostwrite the life story of late renowned bear biologist Charles Jonkel, co-founder of the Great Bear Foundation, for inclusion in the anthology.

After broadcasting a call for submissions throughout the wildlife community, Tom and I waded through over 45 submissions, several by TWS members, to curate the final 15 stories. But in late 2016, Tom stepped back after a yearlong battle with Parkinson’s disease. He passed away at the age of 70 in November 2017.

In early January 2018, the print-side of the project launched through the crowd-source publisher Inkshares, and was successfully funded by backers through pre-orders at the end of February.

The Wildlife Confessional is a collection of biologists’ adventures, misadventures, revelations, reflections, mishaps, and pivotal experiences with wildlife. The authors whose stories we’ve collected represent men and women from all walks of wildlife biology—State/Federal biologists, consultants, students, professors, and interns—and take place across North and Central America, from the Gulf of Alaska to San Ignacio, Belize, from the tropics of the Hawaiian Islands to the deserts of Arizona, and in the desert springs, coastal bluffs, national parks, stock ponds, pick-up trucks, traplines, doctors’ offices, roof tops, outhouses, and bombing ranges in between.

The anthology also includes contributions by authors Marcy Cottrell Houle (Wings for my Flight, One City’s Wilderness, The Prairie Keepers) and J. Drew Lanham (The Home Place: Memoirs of a Colored Man’s Love Affair with Nature).

Contact info:


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Hero image by PublicDomainArchive from Pixabay

December 11, 2019

Advance Copy

The path from idea to book may take myriad routes. The Advance Copy column, started in 2000 by NASW volunteer book editor Lynne Lamberg, features NASW authors telling the stories behind their books. Authors are asked to report how they got their idea, honed it into a proposal, found an agent and a publisher, funded and conducted their research, and organized their writing process. They also are asked to share what they wish they’d known when they started or would do differently next time, and what advice they can offer aspiring authors. Lamberg edits the authors’ answers to produce the Advance Copy reports.

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Publication of NASW author reports in Advance Copy does not constitute NASW's endorsement of any publication or the ideas, values, or material contained within or espoused by authors or their books. We hope this column stimulates productive discussions on important topics now and in the future as both science and societies progress. We welcome your discussion in the comments section below.

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