Holmes, Hannah (1963 - )

Genre: Non-Fiction

Hannah Holmes, a science and natural history writer, is a resident of South Portland. She is a 1982 Boothbay Harbor Regional High School graduate and a 1989 graduate of the University of Southern Maine. During her college years she wrote for Portland area magazines and newspapers. Following her graduation from USM, she moved to New York where, for four years, she was on the staff of Garbage, an environmental magazine. She then returned to Maine and continued her magazine feature writing career.

Her work has appeared in Sierra, Outside, , and Escape.

She also has been a regular contributor and The Skinny columnist at Discovery Channel Online, for which she's written articles on the Hubble space telescope, life in the deep sea, peanut butter, nuclear power, 'tree spit'(amber), the causes of sneezing, traffic jams, Teflon, and the Latin names for living things, to name a few.

Holmes appeared on NPR's Fresh Air on 12 April 2002. More biographical info and a photo are available from the University of Southern Maine alumni magazine, Mainestream, Spring 2002.

Selected Bibliography

  • The Secret Life of Dust: From the Cosmos to the Kitchen Counter, The Big Consequences of Little Things (2001)
  • Suburban Safari: A Year on the Lawn (2005)
  • The Well-Dressed Ape (2008)
  • Quirk: Brain Science Makes Sense of Your Peculiar Personality (2011)

Selected Links