Tucson Festival of Books

Stephen J. Pyne



Arizona State University

Steve Pyne is an emeritus professor at Arizona State University. He has been at ASU since 1985. In 1986 he joined the charter faculty at ASU West, where he remained for 10 years. He transferred to the School of Life Sciences in 1999.

He has published 35 books, most of them dealing with fire, but others on Antarctica, the Grand Canyon, the Voyager mission, and with his oldest daughter, an inquiry into the Pleistocene. His fire histories include surveys of America, Australia, Canada, Europe (including Russia) and the Earth.

"The Ice: A Journey to Antarctica" was named by The New York Times to its 10 best books for 1987. "Fire in America: A Cultural History of Wildland and Rural Fire" won the Forest History Society's best book award. He has twice been awarded NEH Fellowships, twice been a fellow at the National Humanities Center, enjoyed a summer Fulbright Fellowship to Sweden and has received a MacArthur Fellowship (1988-1993). In 1995, he received the Robert Kirsch Award from the Los Angeles Times for body-of-work contribution to American letters.

He now lives on an urban farm in Queen Creek, Ariz. where he raises Tunis sheep, chickens and citrus. His new book is "The Great Ages of Discovery: How Western Civilization Learned About a Wider World."

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Awards: MacArthur Fellow, Los Angeles Times Robert Kirsch Award for body-of-work contribution to American letters


Scheduled events:
Authors in Conversation
Authors Simon Winchester and Stephen Pyne discuss how the quest for land, ownership and discovery have shaped the modern world.

Desert Diamond Casinos Stage (Seats 1000)
Sat, Mar 6, 2021, 1:00 pm - 2:00 pm
History / Biography
Watch broadcast

Panelists: Stephen Pyne, Simon Winchester
Moderator: Stephen Pyne