Richard Conniff

Richard Conniff is an American non-fiction writer, specializing in human and animal behavior. He has collected tarantulas in the Peruvian Amazon, tracked leopards with Kung San hunters in the Namibian desert, climbed the Mountains of the Moon in western Uganda, and trekked through the Himalayas of Bhutan in pursuit of tigers and the mythical migur. The New York Times Book Review says,

Conniff is a splendid writer--fresh, clear, uncondescending, and with never a false step; one can't resist quoting him.

He lives in Old Lyme, Connecticut.

Career

Conniff also writes about wildlife, human cultures and other topics for Time, Smithsonian, Atlantic Monthly, The New York Times Magazine, National Geographic, Audubon Magazine, Yale Environment 360, and other publications in the United States and abroad. His magazine work in Smithsonian won the 1997 National Magazine Award, and was included in The Best American Science and Nature Writing in 2000, 2002, and 2006. Conniff is also the winner of the 2001 John Burroughs Award for Outstanding Nature Essay of the Year, a 2007 Guggenheim Fellowship, and a 2009 Loeb Journalism Award.

Conniff has been a frequent commentator on NPR and serves as a contributing opinion writer for The New York Times online. He has written and presented television shows for National Geographic Channel, TBS, Animal Planet, the BBC, and Channel Four in the UK. His television work has been nominated for an Emmy Award for distinguished achievement in writing, and he won the 1998 Wildscreen Prize for Best Natural History Television Script for the BBC show Between Pacific Tides.

Honors and awards

• 1997 National Magazine Award
• Best American Science and Nature Writing (2000, 2002, and 2006)
• 2001 John Burroughs Award for Outstanding Nature Essay of the Year
• 2007 Guggenheim Fellowship
• 2009 Loeb Award
• 2012 Alicia Patterson Journalism Fellow

Writing

Books

• The Species Seekers: Heroes, Fools, and the Mad Pursuit of Life on Earth. W. W. Norton & Company. 2010. ISBN 978-0-393-06854-2.
• Swimming with Piranhas at Feeding Time: My Life Doing Dumb Stuff with Animals. W. W. Norton & Company. 2009. ISBN 978-0-393-30457-2.
• The Ape in the Corner Office: How to Make Friends, Win Fights, and Work Smarter By Understanding Human Nature. Crown. 2004. ISBN 978-1-4000-5219-6.
• The Natural History of the Rich: A Field Guide. W. W. Norton & Company. 2002. ISBN 978-0-393-32488-4.
• Rats!: the good, the bad, and the ugly, Crown Publishers, 2002, ISBN 978-0-375-91207-8
• Every Creeping Thing: True Trales of Faintly Repulsive Wildlife, (Henry Holt, 1998) ISBN 978-0-8050-5697-6
• Spineless Wonders: Strange Tales from the Invertebrate World (Henry Holt, 1996) ISBN 978-0-8050-4218-4

Selected magazine articles

• TIME: Head Man in the Boneyard (1990)
• TIME: Water Marketing A Deal That Might Save A Sierra (1989)
• The Atlantic: Darwin's Revenge (2008)
• The Atlantic: Heart of Darwin (2008)
• New York Times: Abolish All 'Taxes' (op-ed, 2008)

External links

• Richard Conniff's Strange Behaviors Blog
• Richard Conniff's Species Seekers Blog
• "Richard Conniff: Author of The Natural History of the Rich talks with Robert Birnbaum", identity theory, November 5, 2002
• New York Times article on The Natural History of the Rich