55. “Connecting to The Wild In An Urban Landscape” with Christopher Brown, A Natural History of Empty Lots

SUBSCRIBE, FOLLOW & LISTEN:
Apple Podcasts | Spotify | AmazonMusic | YouTube Music
Welcome to episode 55 of the Nurtured by Nature podcast, today I’m delighted to be joined in conversation by Christopher Brown, author of the recently released book, A Natural History of Empty Lots, Field notes from Urban Edgelands, Back Alleys and other wild places.
In this captivating conversation Chris’ lyrical descriptions take us on a beautiful journey, as we join him in stepping off the pavement into a world where nature has adapted to thrive in the most unlikely of environments at the heart of our urbanised landscapes.
He describes his ambitious plan to create a home for his family on an industrialised wasteland where he has miraculously balanced their needs in a way that also allows him to actively seek to share his space with other species.
Chris reminds us that Rewildling doesn’t require the depopulation of humans and that there is an intrinsic link between the social and economic injustices in our world and the damaged relationship we have with the natural world and the land we live on. But he also encourages us to remember that nature has an incredible ability to respond to the opportunities we make for her and that we don’t have to wait for global institutions to take the lead, we ourselves can be the catalysts for change in remaking a new way of living in the world.
Learn more about Chris
Christopher Brown is a writer and lawyer living in Austin, Texas. His newest book, A Natural History of Empty Lots, a “genre-defying work of nature writing, literary nonfiction, and memoir that explores what happens when nature and the city intersect,” is forthcoming from Timber Press in September 2024.
His 2017 debut novel, Tropic of Kansas, was a finalist for the John W. Campbell Award for best science fiction novel of the year. Rule of Capture, the first in a series of speculative legal thrillers, was published in 2019, and followed by 2020’s Failed State, which was nominated for the 2021 Philip K. Dick Award. He also writes the popular urban nature newsletter Field Notes, and his stories, nonfiction, and criticism have appeared in a wide variety of magazines and anthologies. He was a 2013 World Fantasy Award nominee for the anthology he co-edited, Three Messages and a Warning: Contemporary Mexican Short Stories of the Fantastic.
He’s also taken two companies public, restored a small prairie, worked on two Supreme Court confirmations, rehabilitated a brownfield, reported from Central American war zones, washed airplanes, co-hosted a punk rock radio show, built an eco-bunker, worked day labor, negotiated hundreds of technology deals, protected government whistleblowers, investigated fraud, raised venture capital, explored a lot of secret woodlands, raised two amazing kids, and trained a few good dogs.
He lives in Austin with his family, in the edgeland woods between the river and the factories, where he works in a 1978 Airstream trailer.
Website: https://christopherbrown.com/
A Natural History of Empty Lots by Christopher Brown is a genre-bending blend of naturalism, memoir, and social manifesto for rewilding the city, the self, and society. Through his keen examination of abandoned industrial sites, empty lots, and deserted agricultural land, Brown discovers that even in these so-called “ruined landscapes” nature’s resilience shines. Inspired by its unfailing persistence to return, Brown shows us how easy it can be to bring the wilds back to these damaged places and why it is critical that we do.
Over the course of twenty years, Brown documented these liminal spaces, explored them with his son, and even built his home in Austin, Texas on a brownfield site bisected by oil pipelines. Infused with Brown’s deep love of nature and a constant sense of awe, A Natural History of Empty Lots combines field notes from Brown’s travels with his personal story as he traverses the nexus of the city and the wilds.
Offering a new lens on human disruption and wild lands, he reminds readers of the magic in nature, “the seemingly supernatural wonders produced by everyday interactions among different elements of the natural world. Things that can all be explained by science, but also understood by poets. Even in the most urbanized human terrains, those wonders can still be found—most often at the edges where the pavement ends and the wild is allowed to express.”
Other Useful Resources:
Thank you for being a part of this journey with me.
If you enjoy our conversations, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts here and share with your friends to help these messages ripple out across the world. Please Subscribe or Follow the podcast on your favourite podcast players to make sure you don’t miss our future episodes.
Connect with us and join the conversation on social media:
Instagram @FionaMacKayPhotography
Facebook @FionaMacKayPhotography
Twitter @FiMacKay
Available as a Video Podcast on YouTube: www.youtube.com/prettyflyphotography