I'm just wrapping up "Anthropology for Dummies," my first experience writing for this series. This project lets me communicate with more people than I can ever reach in my classes at Portland State University, and it's a privilege to know that I'm going to be bringing the messages of anthropology to the widest possible audience.

The same goes for "Wilderness Survival for Dummies" (coming in 2009): I get to tell all I've learned about surviving on glaciers, in jungles, on the ocean, and so on...what makes it unique is that I'm not writing for whiskery outdoorsmen, but everyday people. This is very different from writing a manual, say, for downed aviators; that's a different book. Wilderness Survival for Dummies will be practical advice on how to survive in some common outdoor situations--for example, what to do when your car breaks down in Death Valley.

At the moment I'm also working on a book-length narrative of my Iceland expeditions, and another on my experiences as an archaeologist over the last twenty years. I work on these with my agent, Matt Wagner of Fresh Books. He's the best!

Books I've written, or books carrying my wrriting, are linked below.

A sort of online notebook about what I'm writing at the moment can be found at my blog, Amphibian.