Island Press Field Notes

Interning at Island Press has been nothing shy of a totally rad experience. The people, the conversation, and the work itself constantly leave me feeling humbly fortunate for the opportunity to grow here. I came to Washington D.C. all the way from Phoenix, AZ with big eyes and shaky hands after graduating with a B.S. in conservation biology and ecology, and just after spending two months in Kenya and Madagascar writing a freelance blog about conservation and humanitarian organizations I encountered throughout the trip.

Did you see this week's blog post from The Worldwatch Institute about how urban communities are growing green spaces?

I have loved books my entire life, and I always knew that I wanted to pursue a career that would allow me to focus on reading and writing. As an overenthusiastic undergrad, I spent a lot of my time trying to figure out which path I wanted to follow: teaching, writing, researching, or something unrelated to English altogether; there were too many options. Then, during my junior year, I met a fellow student and former IP intern who introduced me to the world of publishing—a field that combined many of my greatest passions.

With Chasing the Red Queen, Andy Dyer offers the first book to apply the Red Queen Hypothesis to agriculture. He illustrates that when selection pressure increases, species evolve in response, creating a never-ending, perpetually-escalating competition between predator (us) and prey (bugs and weeds).