Jonas Danen is a PhD candidate at the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society (LMU Munich), where he is working on his dissertation project, tentatively titled “The New World as Garden: Harvesting the Dutch Hudson Valley, 1609-1664.” There, he studies the role of “landscape” in the Dutch settlement of New Netherland in North America. He is interested in the formation of “natural knowledge” in the early Dutch Republic, when the drainage of lakes transformed the landscape of the Dutch western provinces into an efficient agricultural machine that supported the global colonial project. How did this knowledge of land- and waterscapes travel across the Atlantic Ocean, interact with Indigenous and African ideas of landscape, and influence the colonization of the American Northeast?

Besides his academic work, Jonas is part of an ongoing socio-ecological bat research project in the Medieval Grote of St.-Bavokerk in Haarlem and has helped curate an exhibition on the non-human archival records in the Provincial archives of North Holland. His work has been supported by, among others, het Cultuurfonds, der Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst, the New Netherland Institute and Research Center, Harvard University’s Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Museum, and the Canadian Centre for Architecture.

Historical fiction is her favorite genre because it’s transportive and connects modern readers with the human experience of history. She loves exploring lesser-known eras and short, intriguing side notes that inspire and deserve a fully rendered story arc. She plans to continue writing historical fiction with that focus. Salt People of the Cloud Houses is her debut novel.