Selected Work | John Gifford | Nature Writer & Author

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Selected books, essays, & reporting

Landscaping for Wildlife: Essays on Our Changing Planet. Forthcoming 2026

Red Dirt Country: Field Notes and Essays on Nature. 2019
Pecan America: Exploring a Cultural Icon. 2019
"The Redoubtable Bull Shark." The American Scholar. 2024
“New Turnpike an Attack on Wildlife.” The Oklahoman. 2022
“The Essence of Home.” The Fourth River. 2022
“The Flavors of Home.” Catamaran Literary Reader. 2020
“Salmon on the Table.” Gastronomica. 2020
“Answering the Humble Knock.” Harvard Divinity Bulletin. 2019
"How Millennials (Almost) Killed the Wine Cork." The Atlantic. 2016
"Western Rangeland Management." ASU Swette Center News. 2022
"The Cross Timbers." American Forests. 2017

For signed copies of my books, contact me.

From airport birdwatching and getting lost in an urban forest, to rethinking society’s ill-fated war on wildlife and our struggle to reshape the American landscape, Red Dirt Country invites readers to savor the joys of our natural surroundings. Written by Oklahoma native John Gifford, this timely book is a literary meditation on the Oklahoma landscape and the rich biodiversity of the southern Great Plains.

Pecan America by John Gifford provides readers with a look at how the rising demand for pecans around the world is transforming the way this nut is grown, promoted, and consumed here in the United States. Along the way, Gifford explores its presence in American folk art and culture, documents the pecan industry’s quest for share of stomach in a market brimming with other tree nuts, examines the pecan’s surprising array of health benefits, and profiles some of the fascinating people who bring this food to our tables. In the end, Gifford reveals the pecan to be much more than a food, but also a cultural curiosity and even a metaphor for America itself, one whose diverse nature may be its greatest quality.

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