Raven, Catherine

Catherine Raven is a former national park ranger at Glacier, Mount Rainier, North Cascades, Voyageurs, and Yellowstone national parks. She earned a Ph.D. in biology from Montana State University, holds degrees in zoology and botany from the University of Montana, and is a member of American Mensa and Sigma Xi. Her natural history essays have appeared in American Scientist, Journal of American Mensa, and Montana Magazine. Living in a tiny cottage on an isolated plot of land in Montana, Raven found herself emotionally and physically isolated. Then a mangy-looking fox began to show up every afternoon at 4:15 p.m. She brought out her camping chair, sat as close to him as she dared, and began reading to him from The Little Prince. Her scientific training had taught her not to anthropomorphize animals, yet as she grew to know him, his personality revealed itself and they became friends. Fox and I: An Uncommon Friendship (Spiegel & Grau) is a poignant and remarkable tale of friendship, growth, and coping with inevitable loss, and of how that loss can be transformed into meaning. Time called it “an unnerving, contemplative look at solitude and the connections we make with the outside world. Raven … writes with a refreshingly unsentimental hand.”