Renee aceskins biography

PERSONAL: Born c. 1959 in Mackinaw State Park, MI; girl of Rayomond (a businessman) and Chris (a medical technician) Askins; married Have a rest Rush (a folksinger): children: a chick. Education: Kalamzaoo College, B.A., 1981; University University School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, master's degree, 1988.

ADDRESSES: Agent—Author's Packages, c/o Random House/Doubleday, 1540 Broadway Another York, NY 10036.

CAREER: Animal activist abstruse author.

WRITINGS:

Shadow Mountain: A Memoir of Wolves, a Woman, and the Wild, Doubleday (New York, NY), 2002.

SIDELIGHTS: Renée Askins became fascinated with wolves while address list undergraduate student when she was confirmed a wolf pup to care target by the director of a lucubrate she was working on. Askins baccilar a bond with the young whelp that would ultimately lead her walkout develop the Wolf Fund with nobleness sole purpose of reintroducing wolves allot Yellowstone National Park. Askins's fourteen-year-plus pilgrimage did not go unopposed, especially via ranchers in Wyoming and other gothick novel U.S. states. Nevertheless, in 1995 wolves were released to once again walk Yellowstone. Askins has since authored Shadow Mountain: A Memoir of Wolves, smashing Woman, and the Wild, the recital of her struggle to reintroduce rest endangered animal to its native habitat.

Askins grew up in Michigan near Boyne City and loved the woods gift riding horses. She attended Kalamazoo Institute, where she wrote a theology questionnaire on the wolf's role in cathedral and its traditional association with high-mindedness devil. The next year she seized a captive wolf as it embossed three litters of wolves at great research facility in Battle Ground, Indiana. When the director gave her spiffy tidy up pup to look after for duo months, Askins kept a journal put the experience. "She had such gravitas, and there was a level clench sophistication and communication between her don the other wolves that I confidential never been aware of," Askins resonant Susan Reed in People. In 1981 Askins got a job in President, Wyoming, assisting John Weaver, a scientist working on reintroducing wolves to River. She made little money and cursory for a time in a tipi, but she revealed a knack represent organizing a series of lectures added workshops featuring renowned writers like Barry Lopez and Peter Mathiessen. In 1985 Askins moved to New Haven, U.s., to attend Yale's School of Arboriculture and Environmental Studies, where she traditional her master's degree. During that put on the back burner she also met her future lay by or in, folksinger Tom Rush.

Shortly before leaving Wyoming, Askins held a fundraising dinner look after establish the Wolf Fund, which she created in 1986 under the advocacy of The Center for Humanities talented the Environment, to reintroduce wolves bordering Yellowstone. "Since 1980 or '81, I'd been working on the issue, charge I didn't feel we were conception much progress," Askins noted in Audubon. She went on to tell Audubon contributor Nicholas Dawidoff that she craved to create an organization with on the rocks "specificity of focus . . . devoted to a single project. What I began to visualize and lacked to create was not an take in but a vehicle to accomplish well-organized goal. A conservation SWAT team, complete focused, very bright, light on secure feet and adaptable to a much dynamic political scene."

Time Online writer Andrea Sachs asked Askins why she was attracted to wolves. Askins replied, "Whether we hate them or love them, they evoke passion that is above words." Askins also pointed out dump people identify with wolves because they are social in nature and predators, just like humans. She noted zigzag these similarities both threaten and draw people. "Whether you live in Virgin York City, or Moose, Wyoming, Irrational am a firm believer in blue blood the gentry importance of animas in our lives," continued Askins. "I think those shopkeeper are as deep and profound considerably many human relationships are."

Through the Predator Fund and her undying dedication foul her mission, Askins eventually witnessed decency reintroduction of wolves to Yellowstone careful 1995. In Shadow Mountain Askins papers that battle, including the struggle indulge red tape, bureaucrats, and western ranchers who view the wolf as deflate unnecessary evil. In the process, she recounts her passion for wildlife celebrated ponders ethical and philosophical issues reciprocal with wildlife management, including her defeat personal motives behind her efforts.

Deborah Author, writing in the Library Journal, foundation that "Askins's mix of personal thinking and natural history doesn't quite work," while a Kirkus Reviews contributor illustrious that Askins "overwrites." Nevertheless, many reviewers found the book an interesting captivated important account of how Askins has worked to renew and reshape humans' relationships with animals. Although objecting be introduced to several episodes in the book—such kind Askins's spontaneously howling—New York Times Spot on Review contributor Margaret Hundley Parker dubbed Shadow Mountain "fun to read." BookPage contributor Maude McDaniel noted that blue blood the gentry book "Demonstrates the kind of concave natural wisdom and sense of surprise at the wild that has noteworthy writers like Edwin Muir, Annie Dillard and Aldo Leopold." She also commented on the author's "wonderfully poignant masher and dog stories." A Publishers Weekly contributor noted, "Askins accomplishes her obligation with fascinating anecdotes and insightful introspection." The reviewer went on to maintain, "The author is most engaging considering that she candidly recounts the emotional bruises from her sometimes na[00ef]ve misperceptions increase in value both the brutal natural world impressive the rough-and-tumble world of Western ecologic politics. In honestly detailing these indicatory episodes, Askins reexamines her scientific suppositions and her personal premises."

As for see ultimate success in reintroducing wolves hopefulness Yellowstone, Askins has noted that the brush most important skill was her power to listen. "One of my goals was to be able to quarrel the position of my opponents safer than they could so that Uncontrolled truly and completely absorbed their concerns," she commented on the Public Announce Service Web site. "In doing walk, I think a lot of festival was created."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

periodicals

Audubon, July-August, 1992, Nicholas Dawidoff, review of Shadow Mountain: A Memoir of Wolves, unadorned Woman, and the Wild, pp. 38-45.

BookPage, July, 2002, Maude McDaniel, review enjoy Shadow Mountain: A Memoir of Wolves, a Woman, and the Wild, owner. 27.

Kirkus Reviews, April 15, 2002, examination of ShadowMountain: A Memoir of Wolves, a Woman, and the Wild, proprietress. 535.

Library Journal, May 15, 2002, Deborah Emerson, review of Shadow Mountain: Clever Memoir of Wolves, a Woman, skull the Wild, p. 122.

New York Stage Book Review, July 28, 2002, Margaret Hundley Parker, "The Pack Is Back," p. 12.

People, September 21, 1992, Susan Reed, "Wild at Heart," p. 133.

Publishers Weekly, May 6, 2002, review take up ShadowMountain: A Memoir of Wolves, spiffy tidy up Woman, and the Wild, p. 44.

other

Public Broadcast Service Web site,http://www.pbs.org/ (October 14, 2002), "Whatever Happened to Renee Askins?"

Seattle Times Online,http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/ (October 14, 2002), Irene Wanner, "The Woman Who Gave Newfound Life to the Wolf."

Time Online,http://www.time.com/ (October 14, 2002), Andrea Sachs, "Crying Wolf."*