Bio

Rowan is the author of A Geography of Oysters, Fruitless Fall, The Living ShoreAmerican TerroirShadows on the GulfApples of Uncommon Character, The Essential Oyster, and Truffle Hound.  He has written for Harper’sOutside, Mother Jones, Vice, Scientific American, Smithsonian, Yankee, OrionFood & Wine, The New York Times, The Washington Post, MIT Technology Review, and others, and his work is anthologized in The Best American Science & Nature Writing and Best Food Writing collections. He has received awards from the James Beard Foundation, the Society of American Travel Writers, and the Overseas Press Club. Apples of Uncommon Character was named a Best Book of the Year by the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, NPR, and others. Truffle Hound was named a Best Nonfiction Book of the Year by Publishers Weekly. He has been an Alicia Patterson Foundation fellow, writing about endangered diversity on the borderlands between India, Myanmar, and China; a McGraw Center for Business Journalism Fellow, writing about the disruptive potential of plant-based proteins; and a Knight Science Journalism fellow at MIT, focusing on the environmental and evolutionary impact of synthetic biology. He has performed with Pop-Up Magazine, lectured at Harvard and Yale, and appeared on CBS, NBC, and NPR. His newest project is Wild Chocolate, an 8-episode podcast about searching the Amazon for lost varieties of wild cacao that can make crazy chocolate…and possibly preserve the rainforest in the process.