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Marty’s photo of the day #4808: Deb and I are back from spending four nights in a yurt on the American Prairie. Formerly called the American Prairie Reserve, it currently contains 475,000 acres of pristine prairie in central Montana, and the nonprofit organization that controls it has a goal of eventually acquiring enough land to […]
Marty’s photo of the day #4783: Here’s a “making of” photo, showing what Deb Essen and I were doing earlier this week. One of the cool ideas Deb came up with for her weaving instruction books is to photograph her completed projects “in the wilds of Montana.” And as her photographer-husband, I get to shoot […]
Marty’s photo of the day #4781: The short story of Deb and me moving to Montana is that we had rented a cabin from a friend-of-a-friend on the East Fork of the Bitterroot River at the far southern end of the Bitterroot Valley. It was 1992, and we were driving home to Minneapolis after renting […]
Marty’s photo of the day #4779: At the Essen Wildlife Refuge (i.e. the 25 protected-for-wildlife acres where my wife and I live) we have an upper and lower level. The lower level is lush forest with a seasonal pond. Since we moved to Montana, in 1996, that pond has filled itself every spring and emptied […]
During my April college speaking tour, I read “The Art of Racing in the Rain” by Garth Stein. It’s a novel about a golden retriever, Enzo, and his race-car-driving human. Enzo reminded me of Max, a golden retriever Deb and I had as our first dog after we got married. Yes, all dog books and […]
Marty’s photo of the day #4735: This photo shows Nellie keeping me company last fall on Vancouver Island. When Nellie joined our family, she was a skinny rescue dog, weighing just 42 pounds. She also had what appeared to be a burn on one of her legs. Yesterday, I wrote about Annie, a rescue dog, […]
Day #7 of Seven Marty Essen Books in Seven Days, featured in order of publication. We continue with my latest novel, Doctor Refurb. “This hilarious SF novel pits a doctor and a time-traveling alien against eco catastrophe.”—BookLife by Publisher’s Weekly (editor’s pick) “This time-travel comedy is completely audacious, utterly bonkers, political AF (don’t expect it […]
Day #6 of Seven Marty Essen Books in Seven Days, featured in order of publication. We continue with my return to nonfiction writing: Hits, Heathens, and Hippos: Stories from an Agent, Activist, and Adventurer. Like so many other authors and musicians, this is my “What I did while in isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic project.” […]
Day #5 of Seven Marty Essen Books in Seven Days, featured in order of publication. We continue with Time Is Irreverent 3: Gone for 16 Seconds. Part of this novel was inspired by an amazing class I took on the Middle East during my senior year in high school. I wrote this novel in 2019, […]
Marty’s photo of the day #4732: Four years ago, this week, Donald Trump was busy fucking up the United States’ response to COVID-19, killing hundreds of thousands of people. All my in-person college speaking gigs were cancelled accept one: Eastern Arizona College. After the college assured me that everyone in the audience would be masked, […]
Day #4 of Seven Marty Essen Books in Seven Days, featured in order of publication. We continue with Time Is Irreverent 2: Jesus Christ, Not Again! This is the second novel in what would become the Time Is Irreverent Trilogy. Unfortunately, the advertising departments at Amazon and Facebook refused to allow me to use this […]
Day #3 of Seven Marty Essen Books in Seven Days, featured in order of publication. After writing two nonfiction books, I switched to fiction. Time Is Irreverent is both hilarious and irreverent, and it introduced me to the concept of “review bombing.” Despite open-minded people loving the novel, conservative Christians (many who never even read […]
Day #2 of Seven Marty Essen Books in Seven Days, featured in order of publication. We continue with the four-time award-winning Endangered Edens: Exploring the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Costa Rica, the Everglades, and Puerto Rico. “Join photographer extraordinaire Marty Essen and his intrepid wife Deb on their adventures through four Endangered Edens. You’ll be […]
Day #1 of Seven Marty Essen Books in Seven Days, featured in order of publication. We start with the six-time award-winning classic, Cool Creatures, Hot Planet: Exploring the Seven Continents. “This is a wonderful book—a labor of love—that describes in soul-stirring language what it is like to live with the people, the animals, the birds, […]
Marty’s photo of the day #4695: Deb and I have occasionally talked about returning to Antarctica, but we recently learned that getting to Antarctica by crossing the Drake Passage (famous for the roughest seas in the world) has largely become a thing of the past. Instead, people fly down to Antarctica and then get on […]
Marty’s photo of the day #4686: I came across this today while going through my photo files, looking for a wildlife photo to post. Obviously, it’s not wildlife, but it was wild. It’s from one of my favorite radio interviews of all-time. I was on a book tour, in 2016, for my second book, Endangered […]
Marty’s photo of the day #4670: Now that Nellie’s bionic left-rear leg is totally healed, we are back to all our old pre-surgery routines. One of those routines is a vigorous game of keep-away each morning, where Nellie will grab a stick and run at me full speed, only to dodge my grasp for the […]
Marty’s photo of the day #4659: As anyone who has read my first book, Cool Creatures, Hot Planet: Exploring the Seven Continents, or seen my college show, Around the World in 90 Minutes, knows, my wife, Deb, and I were attacked by a hippo on the Zambezi River in Zimbabwe. The hippo literally bit through […]
Marty’s photo of the day #4653: Nellie is back! As many of you know, Nellie had TPLO surgery on her left rear leg on November 1. That surgery involved removing her cranial cruciate ligament, refitting the bone in her knee, and holding everything together with a metal plate and six screws. It’s her “bionic leg.” […]
Marty’s photo of the day #4651: This photo, from late October 2020, brings back a lot of memories for me. The COVID-19 pandemic was still in the Trumpy stage, and I got booked to present my show, “Around the World in 90 Minutes,” at Eastern Arizona College. Most of my other college gigs had been […]
