“The hummingbird is as much as an expression of life as I am.”

Priyanka Kumar is a nationally-acclaimed naturalist and the author of Conversations with Birds, praised as “a landmark book” that “could help people around the world rewild their hearts and souls” (Psychology Today). She profoundly re-envisions our place in Nature—and Nature’s place in our hearts—and has been compared to Rachel Carson. A documentary inspired by Conversations with Birds, and produced by an Emmy-award-winning team, is forthcoming.

Kumar’s new book The Light Between Apple Trees: Rediscovering the Wild Through a Beloved American Fruit has been called “environmental writing at its best” (Joan Strassmann) and “an urgent message about maintaining biodiversity during a time of ecological tumult” (Foreword Reviews). Kumar’s essays appear in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Review of Books, Orion, and Sierra magazine, and she has been featured on CBS, Oprah Daily, and Yale Climate Connections, among others. She holds an MFA from the University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts and is an alumna of the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference.

Kumar has taught at the University of California Santa Cruz and the University of Southern California, and serves on the Advisory Council of the Leopold Writing Program. Her feature documentary, The Song of the Little Road, is in the permanent collection of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences. Her forthcoming book, The Grassland Queen, will be published in Fall 2026. Her awards include an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Award, a New Mexico/New Visions Governor’s Award, an International Center for Jefferson Studies Fellowship, and an Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences Fellowship.

Photo Credit @ Molly Wagoner