JEFFREY A. LOCKWOOD

To Truly See... Look Away

To Truly See... Look Away

I recently spent two weeks in Grand Teton National Park on a writing retreat. I’d been there before, but this time I adopted a contrarian perspective. My project became finding the most iconic views—and then looking away to truly see this marvelous place. Then, the question became one of writing constraints. Sticking with the iconoclastic tactic of focusing on what one is not supposed to be observing, I chose death. To described the anti-sights, I decided to use exactly

Homemaking

Homemaking

Last month, I served as the artist-in-residence at Homestead National Monument outside of Beatrice, Nebraska. Having come to believe that constraints catalyze creativity, I chose the number 160 to shape my writing—the number of acres that a pioneer could claim under the Homestead Act of 1862. Some days I worked with schoolchildren and every day I took a walk equivalent to circumambulating the border of a homestead through the restored tall-grass prairie while contemplating

Science, Art and Human Universals

Science, Art and Human Universals

We (eight Americans and seven Moroccans, along with a French documentarian and a Japanese funder) pulled off a performance of Locust: The Opera in Agadir, Morocco, at the 13th International Congress of Orthopterology (the scientists who study crickets, katydids, grasshoppers and, of course, locusts). Everything went just as expected, meaning that almost nothing went as planned. My years of international ecological research paid off in terms of anticipating surprises and emb

When Little Gnomes Have Big Ideas

When Little Gnomes Have Big Ideas

I like gnomes. The legendary, subterranean dwarfs are fine, but I mean the other sense of “gnome”—a pithy statement of general truth (gnō-, being the root of knowledge). The more common terms include aphorisms, maxims and apothegms, with all of their subtle and imprecise distinctions. Sages have long distilled essential teachings into proverbial expressions. Jesus admonished: “Put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the swor

The Locusts are Coming (Operatically)!

The Locusts are Coming (Operatically)!

I previously wrote about a collaborative project with Dr. Anne Guzzo—an acclaimed composer in the Department of Music—to produce a chamber opera (How Science OPERAtes). We are excited to announce that LOCUST: THE OPERA will premiere at the National Museum of Wildlife Art in Jackson, Wyoming, on September 28th at 7:00 pm, with a matinee performance the next day at 1:00 pm. This is the story of the Rocky Mountain locust, whose swarms blackened the skies of North America until

Scientists Say the Darnedest Things

Scientists Say the Darnedest Things

Back in the 1960s, my family watched Art Linkletter’s television show, which included a segment in which he asked children questions or vice-versa. This format gave rise to a series of books titled, “Kids Say the Darnedest Things.” The notion was that the simple, direct, unfiltered words of children can be wonderfully incisive. Their provocative questions can reveal that grownups don’t really know—or maybe haven’t even thought—about some matters that we might presume to un

How Science OPERAtes

How Science OPERAtes

Few people grasp the complexities of science and still fewer engage the richness of opera—so why not combine the two?! This seems absurd, but the venture is also ridiculously intriguing. I teamed up with Dr. Anne Guzzo—an acclaimed composer in the Department of Music—to propose writing and producing a chamber opera about the Rocky Mountain locust. If you think that’s remarkable, what’s really amazing is that we received funding. Our pitch was creative and maybe even plausi

A Textbook Project (really, it’s not as dull as you imagine!)

A Textbook Project (really, it’s not as dull as you imagine!)

One of the challenges of being a writer is having too many interesting projects and not enough time. This is hardly the grounds for pity. Nobody feels sorry for the kid in a candy shop with a five dollar bill. And while I have a non-fiction project in the works (Behind the Carbon Curtain: The Energy Industry, Political Censorship and Free Speech, under contract with University of New Mexico Press) and my first novel (Dose Unto Others, a noir mystery involving a cop-turned-

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Wyoming is the State that Keeps on Giving (at least when it comes to censorship)

Wyoming is the State that Keeps on Giving (at least when it comes to censorship)

A Textbook Project (really, it’s not as dull as you imagine!)

A Textbook Project (really, it’s not as dull as you imagine!)

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