Bob Wyss
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Welcome to Big Cypress Swamp in Florida
That’s me on the left. I’m with a group of journalism students from the University of Connecticut in Florida during Spring Break in 2014. That trip reflects the type of work I have done both while I was teaching and since I retired as an emeritus professor. I consider myself first a journalist and it has been a long career, beginning as a reporter and editor for the Providence Journal and later at the University of Connecticut.
My most recent work is Black Gold, The Rise, Reign and Fall of American Coal. The book is a narrative nonfiction account of the role coal played in American history and culture and its current impact on the climate crisis threatening the world. A second book published in 2015 is The Man Who Built the Sierra Club, A Life of David Brower, a profile of the controversial Sierra Club leader. Another is Brimfield Rush, The Thrill of Collecting and the Hunt for the Big Score published in 2006, a narrative non-fiction book about the antiques industry. Also, there have been two editions of Covering the Environment, How Journalists Work the Green Beat, a textbook and the first to be issued to assist in the teaching of environmental journalism
During my career I have written more than 6,000 news articles including prize-winning stories and series, specializing eventually in environmental issues. I have also written for the New York Times, Christian Science Monitor, Boston Globe, Yankee, Rhode Island Monthly and others. While at UConn I taught a range of news writing courses which increasingly feature the latest in digital journalism. I also ran pilot courses designed to teach scientists and science students how to communicate more effectively with the public. Those efforts resulted in 2015 in the award of a $500,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to improve science communication.
My work since leaving the university in 2018 has included serving as an editor for the SEJournal, the online publication of the Society of Environmental Journalists. I have also written and edited on environmental journalism subjects in a variety of publications. I now live in Seattle, Washington.
