ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Photo by Betsy Hanson

Cynthia Barnett is an award-winning author and journalist who has covered water and climate change stories worldwide—reporting from the rainiest place on earth in Cherrapunji, India, on epic drought in Perth, Australia, or on the American folly of building in swamplands with too much water and deserts without enough.

Her latest book, The Sound of the Sea: Seashells and the Fate of the Oceans, was named one of the best science books of the year by NPR’s Science Friday. “The seashell might seem a decidedly small foundation for a book,” The New York Times wrote, “but Barnett’s account remarkably spirals out, appropriately, to become a much larger story about the sea, about global history and about environmental crises and preservation.”

Barnett was a longtime newspaper and magazine staff writer before diving full time into water. Her Knight-Wallace Fellowship researching freshwater history and science at the University of Michigan led to her first book, Mirage: Florida and the Vanishing Water of the Eastern U.S.,  later named by the Tampa Bay Times as one of the top 10 books that every Floridian should read. Her second, Blue Revolution, which calls for a new water ethic for the United States, was named one of the best science books of the year by The Boston Globe, which describes her author persona as “part journalist, part mom, part historian, and part optimist.”

The Los Angeles Times writes that she “takes us back to the origins of our water in much the same way, with much the same vividness and compassion as Michael Pollan led us from our kitchens to potato fields and feed lots of modern agribusiness.”

Of her many titles, Barnett’s favorite is being rain’s biographer. Rain: A Natural and Cultural History, her third book, was longlisted for the National Book Award; a finalist for the 2016 PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award; and included on a number of best books of the year lists.

In 2015, Barnett returned to her alma mater, the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications in Gainesville, to develop the college’s Environment, Climate and Science Journalism program.

She continues to write and speak on water and climate change, with stories and essays in The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, National Geographic, Politico, Sierra, Salon, Orion, Discover and other publications. Her many journalism awards include a national Sigma Delta Chi prize for investigative magazine reporting. As a keynote speaker and guest lecturer, she shares stories from her books and themes from her teaching including water and climate ethics; environmental storytelling; the power of listening; and environmental leadership.

Her new book underway explores the mystery of aquifers and crisis of groundwater. The working title, The Sea Beneath Us, pays homage to Rachel Carson’s The Sea Around Us.