Diane Ackerman was born on October 7, 1948 in Waukegan, Illinois, and received her B.A. in English from Pennsylvania State University and her M.A., M.F.A., and Ph.D. in English from Cornell University. Poet, author, educator, adventurer, and naturalist, she tries to bridge science and art in her writing, exploring questions of who we are, where we come from, and how we fit into the fabric of the world. Ackerman's poetry has been published in many journals and in the books The Planets: A Cosmic Pastoral (1976), Wife of Light (1978), and Jaguar of Sweet Laughter: New and Selected Poems (1991). Her nonfiction works include A Natural History of the Senses; A Natural History of Love; The Moon by… Whale Light, and Other Adventures Among Bats, Crocodilians, Penguins, and Whales; and a children's book, Monk Seal Hideaway and Bats: Shadows in the Nights. She is coeditor of a Norton anthology, The Book of Love. Her essays about nature and human nature have appeared in Parade, National Geographic, The New York Times, and The New Yorker magazines. Her awards include the Abbie Copps Poetry Prize, Black Warrior Poetry Prize, Pushcart Prize, Peter I. B. Lavan award, and the Wordsmith award. She was named a Literary Lion by the New York Public Library. She has taught at a variety of universities, including Columbia and Cornell. Diane Ackerman lives in a farmhouse in Ithaca, New York, which she shares with her longtime companion, novelist Paul West.