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Event: Christian Cooper & Amy Tan in Conversation: Sept. 14, 2025
Christian Cooper
Christian Cooper won an Emmy award as the host of the National Geographic TV series Extraordinary Birder and is the author of the New York Times bestselling memoir Better Living Through Birding, through which he spreads “the gospel of birding.” An advocate for equality for queer people, justice for Black people, and birds for all people, Christian serves on the board of NYC Bird Alliance, where works to connect people to nature in an urban environment. A former Marvel Comics editor and writer, he combined his passions in the Black Lives Matter graphic short story "It’s a Bird” from DC Comics and continues to seek synergy at the intersections of storytelling, progressivism, and environmentalism—including with his newly released children’s book The Urban Owls: How Flaco and Friends Made the City Their Home.
Amy Tan
Amy Tan Amy Tan is a bestselling novelist, essayist, and nature journaler. Her latest book is the New York Times bestseller The Backyard Bird Chronicles (Knopf, 2024), with a forward written by David Sibley. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and in 2023 she received the National Humanities Medal. She has been a member of the Nature Journal Club on Facebook since 2016 and also has taken workshops with author, artist, and educator John Muir Laws, which led to her passion for nature journaling. She wrote the introduction to How to Teach Nature Journaling by John Muir Laws and Emilie Lygren. She is the subject of the documentary, “Amy Tan: Unintended Memoir,” part of which was filmed at the first-ever Wild Wonder Nature Journaling Conference at Asilomar in Monterey in 2019, where Amy sketched with fellow nature journalers Fiona Gillogly and John Muir Laws. As part of her informal nature studies, Amy has served as a go-fer in field research with biologists, including one expedition that documented the existence of a single ant colony on Easter Island, and another study on the social system of a community of female rattlesnakes in Colorado that gather to protect their young. She is an instructor with Masterclass, in which she discusses in part how observing nature is similar to developing characters. Her passion for birds led her to joining the board of American Bird Conservancy, which is dedicated to conserving wild birds and their habitats throughout the Americas. Amy recently appeared in a New York Times online event with Christian Cooper on “The Joy of Birding,” and in 2022, she was the host of “Selected Shorts: Bird Stories,” held at Symphony Space in New York City and also live streamed. She is grateful to the Nature Journal Club and Wild Wonder Foundation for inspiration, resources, and encouragement. https://amytan.net/
John Muir Laws
John Muir Laws (a.k.a. Jack) is a principal leader and innovator of the worldwide nature journaling movement and the founder of the Wild Wonder Foundation. As a scientist, educator, artist, and author, Jack helps people forge a deeper and more personal connection with nature through keeping illustrated nature journals and understanding science. Jack has kept nature journals since he was a child. As a dyslexic, Jack struggled in school. He found his place and delight in learning through spending time in nature and keeping notebooks of his observations, discoveries, and adventures. Trained as a wildlife biologist and scientific illustrator, he now observes the world with rigorous attention and awe. He looks for mysteries, plays with ideas, and seeks connection in all he sees. He has found that attention, observation, curiosity, and creative thinking are not gifts, but instead are skills that grow with training and deliberate practice. Jack loves to share ways to make these skills a part of everyday life. He is the author and illustrator of several books including The Laws Guide to Nature Drawing and Journaling (also available in Spanish), The Laws Sketchbook, The Laws Guide to Drawing Birds, Sierra Birds: a Hiker’s Guide, Sierra Wildflowers: A Hiker’s Guide, and The Laws Guide to the Sierra Nevada. He is co-author with Emilie Lygren of How to Teach Nature Journaling. JohnMuirLaws.com
