Jan DeBlieu

Jan DeBlieu is the author of four books and dozens of articles and essays about people and nature. Her first book, Hatteras Journal (Fulcrum 1987), is considered a regional classic on the Outer Banks. It has been reprinted in paper by John Blair Publisher.

Meant to Be Wild (Fulcrum 1991) was chosen as one of the best science books of the year by Library Journal. Wind (Houghton Mifflin, 1998; Shoemaker & Hoard 2006) won the John Burroughs Medal for Distiguished Natural History Writing, the highest national award given for a volume of nature writing. Year of the Comets: A Journey from Sadness to the Stars was published by Shoemaker & Hoard in Spring 2005. All Jan’s books remain print.. Year of the Comets will be released in paper in December 2006.

Most of Jan’s work explores the subtle ways we are shaped by the landscapes where we live and work. She has contributed essays to many national publications, including The New York Times Magazine, Audubon, and Orion.

In the spring of 2003 Jan was named the Cape Hatteras Coastkeeper for the North Carolina Coastal Federation, a grassroots environmental group that works to protect coastal waters from pollution. A longtime environmental activist, in the late 1980s she helped form a group that successfully kept oil companies from drilling off the Outer Banks. She lives on Roanoke Island with her husband and son.