STEVEN PAVLOS HOLMES, Ph.D., is an independent scholar in the environmental humanities, with a special interest in people’s personal experiences of the natural world. He earned a doctorate in American cultural history from Harvard University and has taught both at Harvard and at the Cambridge (Mass.) Center for Adult Education. His first book, The Young John Muir: An Environmental Biography (as Steven J. Holmes; University of Wisconsin Press, 1999), won the Modern Language Association’s Prize for Independent Scholars, and he has presented papers and workshops on Muir and on environmental life-writing at numerous academic and literary conferences. More recently, he has worked on innovative literary and historical projects with The Wilderness Society, the Blue Ocean Institute, and Massachusetts Audubon’s Boston Nature Center. Steve currently lives, gardens, and watches birds in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, with his partner Carlene Pavlos and their cat, Millet (who sometimes does more than watch the birds ...).