This week my guest is Paula Wyman, author of the new book, “Bad Naturalist: One Woman's Ecological Education on a Wild Virginia Mountaintop.” Paula's book is a blend of memoir, natural history, and conservation science, and it's a chronicle of her attempts to restore 200 acres of farmland long gone to seed in the Blue Ridge Mountains, despite the fact that she never excelled at gardening.

Paula's first book is “You May See a Stranger,” an award-winning, linked collection of short stories that won praise from “The New Yorker” and a starred review in “Publishers Weekly.” Paula's stories have appeared in “McSweeney's Quarterly,” “Ploughshares,” and “The Southampton Review,” and her nonfiction has been featured on NPR, in “The Washington Post”, and “The Rumpus,” among other places.

We covered:

- How having a pet praying mantis as a kid is directly related to her naturalist exploits

- In praise of doing deep dives into random subjects

- How a manageable dream of restoring a small meadow to its natural state ballooned into rehabbing a 200-acre mountaintop

- The novel she was writing that she can’t even remember what it was about now

- How hearing a young Howard Stern shaped her career path

- The power of doing deep dives

- Turning scribbles and bad doodles into a book

- A plug for using the writing software Scrivener

Connect with Paula at paulawhyman.com.

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For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.

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[Paula Whyman, practical matters]: Guidance for knowing whether you really want to turn that idea into a book Ep 1182