The Thing with Feathers: birds and hope with Courtney Ellis

Liv Ross is a monastic poet based in Missouri. Her most recent epic poem, The Blackbird Ballad, is a festival of mystery and intrigue interspersed, as is true of most good poems, with the ordinary things of life. It comes out this Eastertide with Solum Literary Press.

Today on the show, Liv joins us to talk about faithfulness, backyard birds, writing poetry, the goodness of God, and so much more. I enjoyed everything about this conv...

Professor, ornithologist, and wildlife ecologist Tim O’Connell joins us on the show today to chat about birds, spring migration, the Wilson Ornithological Society, and what he’s seeing in Oklahoma this time of year.

Tim is a great storyteller, from a random birder he picked up one day on the side of the road (and lived to tell the tale!) to interactions with his students, his professional societies, and the little delights birding b...

I could have talked to Ragan Sutterfield all day long. An Episcopal priest by trade, he is also a reviewer for e-Bird in Arkansas.

Ragan is a wealth of wisdom, kindness, and birdy-knowledge. He wrote the fabulous new book, Watch and Wonder: Birding as a Spiritual Practice, with Broadleaf Press.

Ragan’s perspective on birds, birding, and God is deep and wide and welcoming and filled with delight. The way he weaves together faith, natu...

Hannah Miller King is a brilliant writer and Anglican priest living in North Carolina. She’s the author of the brand-new book (just came out on February 17 with IVP!) Feasting on Hope: How God Sets a Table in the Wilderness. I devoured it in one sitting and I was so excited to get the chance to ask Hannah all about it.

From her ecumenical childhood in different denominations to the death of her father while she was still young, Hann...

It can be a tender thing to launch a creative project into the world. That’s true whether you’re an actor, a baker, a musician, a quilter, or almost any other artisan. As a writer, releasing a book often feels like that scene in early Gray’s Anatomy where Meredith stands before Derek and says, “Pick me, choose me, love me.”

In short, it’s a little bit vulnerable.

When I launched my first book back in 2019, Daryl took me to see Sweene...

When I attend birding festivals, I love to go out on tours. There’s nothing like loading into a van with five or ten other bird enthusiasts and a couple of guides and see what we discover together. Plus: the guides carry the big, heavy spotting scopes, which is a nice perk on a long, hot day.

I don’t usually look into who my guides are before I sign up for one tour over another—I figure that if they’ve been hired, they’re qualified...

Today we’re joined on the show by Jennifer Grant, a Chicago author of books for children and adults. I’ve loved Jennifer’s work for years and was delighted to pick her brain about her newest work, Consider the Birds, a lovely picture book filled with wonder.

Jennifer talks all things children’s books, birds, and faith, including how her faith compelled her to take a stand against certain governmental practices in Chicago this autum...

Gina and I became friends over social media a few years back. Then we became good friends when she started regularly texting me photos of Northern Cardinals. I live in California, you see, and those red beauties rarely make it out past the Rocky Mountains. What a gift!

It was only then that I picked up Gina’s book: Dorothy & Jack: The Transforming Friendship of Dorothy L. Sayers and C.S. Lewis. and discovered that she is not only a ...

Birding is for everyone, or so the popular saying goes. And it really is! You can bird if you’re young or old, bored or busy, a city-dweller or a rural homesteader. There are blind birder’s groups and those for the hearing-impaired. You can bird if you have mobility issues or disability of any kind. It’s always possible.

Bu sometimes it’s more difficult than others. If you have any sort of physical limitations, you may need to know ...

Becca Rowland, aka The Girl in White Glasses, aka one of the funniest and most whimsical bird book writers I’ve had the pleasure to encounter, is a delight. She sees beauty everywhere, finds humor in unlikely places, and is making the world a better place one gentle bird joke at a time.

Her new book, Bird Talk: Hilariously Accurate Ways to Identify Birds by the Sounds They Make cracked me up on nearly every page. It links bird sound...

Poet, essayist, critic, editor, and general literary jack-of-all trades Paul J. Pastor is one of those authors whose SubStack, The Rose Fire, I adore and whose publication dates I track. When is his next book coming out?

Good news! The Locust Years, his newest book of poetry, just released from Wise Blood Books. This one is such a treat, my friends.

Paul joins us on the show today to talk about all things hope, grief, poetry, birds,...

As a parent, helping my kids connect with the love and care of God through experiences in nature is one of my great joys. Whether it’s taking them to the park or going on a hike or just pointing out the cool bug that’s hanging out on our gutter, there are few things like the power and beauty of the natural world to inspire wonder.

Valerie Ellis is a children’s book author who knows a thing or two about wonder. From giraffes to acorn...

Author and speaker Dorothy Greco joins us on the podcast today to help expand our definition of misogyny and see how embracing both women and men as full parts of the human story can bring us hope.

She joins us to talk about her fabulous new book, For the Love of Women: Uprooting and Healing Misogyny in America. I found this conversation so enlightening, and I just know that you will, too.

Plus: why Saw-whet Owls are some of the best...

I love birds. I’m fascinated by American history. But there is not enough writing out there about birds and history! Enter: Robert Francis, whose wonderful Substack, Bird History, is a delight of parrots and passenger pigeons, feathered hats and conservation treaties.

He joins us on the show today to talk all things bird history. Plus: twenty of the weirdest categories for bird names (they’ll crack you up, for reals), finding hope i...

Karen Swallow Prior is one of those writers and thinkers I’ve enjoyed reading for years. Her book On Reading Well inspired me to tackle some challenging literature. The wisdom of The Evangelical Imagination has helped illustrate more than one of my sermons. And now Karen’s rare and signature mix of depth, courage, and wisdom shows up on every page of her fabulous new book, You Have a Calling: Finding Your Vocation in the True, Good...

Emily McGowin is an associate professor of theology at Wheaton College as well as a priest in the Anglican diocese of Churches for the Sake of Others. She is the author of three books: Quivering Families, Christmas, and Households of Faith.

Today Emily comes on the show to talk about family: what it is, what Scripture says about it, and how family can be a blessing to our communities and our world. We dig into her newest book, Hous...

Starting a business is not for the faint of heart. Starting a publishing business might take the most courage of all.

Enter Karin Hoyle. This author and birder wanted to broaden the landscape of middle grade literature with more books that feature the good, the beautiful, and the true. Middle grade lit is a field that is often filled with books that skew much older than the kids preteens and teens who read them. As a parent myself, ...

When Jack Bruce founded WellBirds, he was excited to merge two of his passions—birding and health. It’s no secret that birding can improve our mental health, but did you know it can improve our social, emotional, and physical health as well?

Join us on this episode of The Thing with Feathers as we learn from Jack about the birds of Atlanta and the myriad of ways birding can strengthen and connect us.

Plus, a window into fabulous pro...

As a mom of three youngish kids (6, 9, and 12), I was so excited to talk to Barbara Hunsicker. Barbara is a Florida birder, a theologian, and a mom of two. She shares her best birding tips to welcome kids into the joy, the gift of watching youngsters discover the world of birds, and how we might learn from our kids, too.

Plus, we talk hurricane relief and what natural disasters can mean for us and our feathered friends. Barbara and ...