Lori Vermaas

• Trees and plants
• Natural history and its illustration in America (birds, trees, other plants)
• American and European plant hunters, seventeenth through nineteenth centuries
• American environmental history
• American late nineteenth and early twentieth century cultural history
• American visual culture, 1850-1950

Books

• Cornerstone: Building the Rio Grande Valley. Harlingen, TX: RGV-AGC Publications, 2015. A coffee table-book history of the commercial built environment in the Rio Grande Valley in Texas; includes many illustrations.
• Sequoia: The Heralded Tree in American Art and Culture. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2003. A scholarly study of the sequoias’ visual culture from the 1850s to the 1950s; includes illustrations.

Articles

• “Making the Perfect Cigar In Iowa and America,” Iowa Heritage Illustrated, Fall & Winter 2011: 120-27.
• Encyclopedia Entries: Three thematic entries for both Call of the Wild (Freedom, Nature, Identity) and White Fang (Oppression, Nature, Identity), in Jennifer McClinton-Temple, ed. Encyclopedia of Themes in Literature. New York, NY: Facts on File, Inc., 2010.
• “Symbolic Trees and Practical Tree Care: The Iowa Arbor Day Manual,” Iowa Heritage Illustrated Winter 2004: 182-91.
• “One In a Million,” Iowa Heritage Illustrated Summer 2001: inside backcover (butter boxes and the creamery’s presence in Iowa in the early twentieth century).

Journalism

• “Eating Green is Good For You,” Valley Business Report June 2016: 5-7.
• “Premium Ice Cream Wins Fans,” Valley Business Report March 2016: 12-13.
• “Providing Better Diets for Pets,” Valley Business Report October 2015: 12-13.
• “Eat—and Drink—Your Greens,” Valley Business Report September 2015: 22-23.
• “Dinner in the Diner,” Valley Business Report July 2015: 18-19.
• “Nicho’s Niche: Fruits and Vegetables,” Valley Business Report May 2015: 14-15.
• “Sweet Sisters: Sweeter Bake,” RGV+ Beyond Arts & More August 2013: 22-24.
• “European-Style Bakery Takes Off,” Valley Business Report June 2013: 10-11.
• “Jesse Castellon—Street Food Chef,” RGV+ Beyond Arts & More May 2013: 26-28.
• “IMAS Celebrates the 5th Annual Night at the Brew-seum,” RGV+ Beyond Arts & More May 2013: 49.
• “The Texas Chefs’ Association—Introducing Culinary Variety to the Valley,” RGV+ Beyond Arts & More April 2013: 18-19.
• “Jorge Jaber Winery: Wine to Eat With,” RGV+ Beyond Arts and More, February 2013: 28-29.

Texas-born but raised in three corners of the United States, my nomadic tendencies formed early in me, both geographically and imaginatively. Perhaps as a result, I’ve not only lived in many different places and communities, I write in and edit within a variety of genres. Poetry and the interpretive techniques I gleaned from my doctoral training in American Studies drive the strongest examples of my writing, which include a memoir on grace and a cultural analysis of the sequoias from the 1850s to 1950s. I hope that Idaho will inspire even more storytelling, particularly those with nature at its core.