About the author
A letter from Jack…
My professional name is Dr. John B. Wright, but friends call me Jack. After earning a Masters in Geography at the University of Montana, I worked in rural Montana as the County Land-Use Planning Director for Granite County then Mineral County. My desire to protect land then led me to a consulting career focused on creating conservation easements on ecologically-important private land in Montana, Wyoming, and Colorado. In 1990, I earned my PhD in Geography at UC-Berkeley, then served as a professor at New Mexico State University. I taught biogeography, cultural geography, the West, and environmental planning. But we kept our house in the Missoula’s Rattlesnake Valley and I spent summers working on land protection projects around the state. Back in the Southwest, I helped establish the New Mexico Land Conservancy; a land trust based in Santa Fe.
I have traveled to over 70 countries and lived in Ukraine before the full-scale invasion by Russia. I grew up in Winterport, Maine sailing on Penobscot Bay. My wife Rachel and I love Nepal, hiking, sculpture, and standard poodles. Ours calls himself Micah.
2023’s “Fire Scars” & Other Featured Works
Looking to learn more about John’s next works? Read about his Upcoming Novels and Upcoming Non-Fiction pieces.
Published May 9, 2023
Fire Scars
May 9, 2023
Fire Scars
In John B. Wright’s debut environmental mystery, Matt Solberg is charged with discovering who is lighting fires in the forests that surround Missoula, Montana. A geographer with a deep personal need to bring people out of danger, Matt leads a search and rescue team whose job is to head directly into the mouth of hell, hiking into blazing backcountry to find missing residents. Matt and his team not only rely on their hard-won knowledge of Montana’s wild landscape, but also on Matt’s mentor, Dr. Bill Knight, a fire ecologist who understands the burning beast better than anyone.
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Published September 16, 2013
Montana Ghost Dance: Essays on Land and Life
Published July 22, 2010
Rocky Mountain Divide: Selling and Saving the West
July 22, 2010
Rocky Mountain Divide: Selling and Saving the West
The opposing forces of conservation and development have shaped and will continue to shape the natural environment and scenic beauty of the American West. Perhaps nowhere are their opposite effects more visible than in the neighboring states of Colorado and Utah, so alike in their spectacular mountain environments, yet so different in their approaches to land conservation. This study explores why Colorado has over twenty-five land trusts, while Utah has only one.
John Wright traces the success of voluntary land conservation in Colorado to the state’s history as a region of secular commerce. As environmental consciousness has grown in Colorado, people there have embraced the businesslike approach of land trusts as simply a new, more responsible way of conducting the real estate business.
In Utah, by contrast, Wright finds that Mormon millennialism and the belief that growth equals success have created a public climate opposed to the formation of land trusts. As Wright puts it, “environmentalism seems to thrive in the Centennial state within the spiritual vacuum which is filled by Mormonism in Utah.” These findings remind conservationists of the power of underlying cultural values that affect their efforts to preserve private lands.
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Published November 3, 2004
Saving the Ranch: Conservation Easement Design In The American West
November 3, 2004
Saving the Ranch: Conservation Easement Design In The American West
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Published May 15, 2000
Montana Places: Exploring Big Sky Country
Travel Writings
The world’s landscapes reveal so much about us. The impress of culture on the land can be read like a book explaining who we truly are. Stewardship and spirituality collide with misperceptions and harm. Travel along with me to familiar places like the Blackfoot River in Montana; a conserved watershed with a tough past. Visit Northern New Mexico where Hispano and Native American land claims now influence National Forest management. Be surprised by Spain’s Sierra Nevada Mountains where Moorish culture is still vividly expressed in the terrain. Join me on treks to sacred landscapes – the Santuario in New Mexico, Sri Pada in the high interior of Sri Lanka, and the Buddhist realm of Upper Mustang in the Himalayas of Nepal. I hope you enjoy these explorations of land and life.
The Real River That Runs Through It: Montana’s Imperilled Blackfoot
Download the PDFHispano Forestry, Land Grants and the US Forest Service in Northern New Mexico
Download the PDFEl Santuario de Chimayo: New Mexico’s Lourdes
Download the PDFSri Pada: Sacred Pilgrimage Mountain of Sri Lanka
Download the PDFMoorish Cultural Landscapes of Las Alpujarras, Spain
Download the PDFThe Changing Tibetan Buddhist Landscape of Upper Mustang, Nepal
Download the PDFNews & Events
Contact John
Available for readings, signings, seminars, and speaking.
