#edited collections

Happy to announce that I've put together the first college textbook of historical primary sources for animal history. Animals in Nineteenth-Century America: A History in Documents will be published by Broadview Press later this year.

One thing that is great about a project like this is how much I learn in putting it together. I got to know historical creatures-from mosquitos to deer to snakes to celebrity horses-in every corner of 19th century America, not to mention the people they contended with.

What makes a good short story collection?

I’ve only recently started to appreciate collections of short stories. While I’ve always enjoyed short stories as individual entities, sitting down to read bite-sized stories never really appealed to me. Instead, I always preferred to get stuck into a novel, something long enough to really engage me, allowing me to grow attached to the characters and settings over the course of tens of thousands…