Cornelia F. Mutel
Stories Generating Hope Generating Action

About Connie: 

Cornelia F. Mutel, an ecologist by training, has written nature and environmental books for nearly a half century. Over time, she has increasingly used first-person stories and other creative writing techniques to draw her reading audience more deeply into her subject matter. Her 2016 book, A Sugar Creek Chronicle: Observing Climate Change from a Midwestern Woodland, greatly amplified these techniques, as did Tending Iowa's Land: Pathways to a Sustainable Future, a 2022 edited compendium of Iowa's environmental challenges and their solutions. She claims that creative writing techniques better communicate important material and simultaneously make her books more fun to read and write. Connie, a plant ecologist by training, was until retirement a Senior Science Writer at the University of Iowa’s broad-based IIHR-Hydroscience & Engineering Institute. She lives with her husband in an oak woodland north of Iowa City, which they are restoring to its pre-settlement diversity and health.

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To connect with Connie and find out more about her work:

• Check out internet postings or contact her University of Iowa home institute, IIHR-Hydroscience & Engineering. 

• Check out her books! Four of them are pictured here! 

• Check out her 2011 feature in "On the Fly: writers on writing":