Nancy Lord
Lecturer
Alaskan Nancy Lord brought her life-long passion for the environment and her background in uniting science and the humanities to the Science Writing faculty in 2015. Among her published books are three collections of short stories and five works of literary nonfiction, including the memoir Fishcamp, the cautionary Beluga Days, and the front-lines story of climate change, Early Warming. More recently she edited an anthology of essays (Made of Salmon) about salmon and their place in Alaska lives and culture. Her “science novel” pH: A Novel from 2017 folds marine science and the issues of ocean warming and acidification into a character-driven story.
Lord is originally from New Hampshire and holds degrees from Hampshire College (BA in liberal arts) and Vermont College of Fine Arts (MFA in fiction writing.) In addition to teaching in the Johns Hopkins science writing program, she teaches creative writing part-time at the Kachemak Bay Campus of the University of Alaska and in the low-residency MFA program at the University of Alaska Anchorage. She’s part of the core faculty at the annual KachemakBay Writers’ Conference.
Her awards include fellowships from the Alaska State Council on the Arts and the Rasmuson Foundation, a Pushcart Prize, and a number of artist residencies. Her work has appeared in many magazines, journals, and anthologies, including Best Spiritual Writing. She reviews books related to Alaska and the North every other Sunday for the Anchorage Daily News. She was honored as Alaska Writer Laureate for 2008-10.
In addition to writing and teaching writing, she has worked as a commercial salmon fisherman and a cruise ship naturalist. She’s very fond of berry picking, beachcombing, and bird and wildlife watching. For more about Nancy or her writing, see writernancylord.com.