Miriam Darlington has been obsessively tracking and writing about wildlife ever since she was small. Born and brought up in Lewes, Sussex, Miriam has lived in London, in France, and for five years she lived on St Mary's on the Isles of Scilly. She is now settled with her family in Devon, England. She was a school teacher until she escaped and became a writer in 2008. As well as being a full-time author, she teaches Creative Writing at Plymouth University.

Miriam's first collection of poetry, Windfall, was published by Oversteps Books in 2008. In 2009 on a fully-funded Creative and Critical PhD at Exeter University she produced  Otter Country, In Search of the Wild Otter, a creative non-fiction travel and nature memoir. Part-travelogue, part close-reading of the wild otter as an emblem of nature conservation, Otter Country places the animal at the heart of its habitat, tracing the journey of this species from its early evolutionary history, through being seen as vermin, from its dalliance on the list of endangered species to its arrival as literary icon and the nation's favourite native predator. A critical and contextual ecocritical study of nature writing completed her PhD in September 2013.

Owl Sense, a creative non-fiction study of the wild owl and the accumulation of mythology around Britain's own owl species, presents a view of owls' ecological reality across Europe. It was published by Guardian Faber in February 2018. It was serialised by BBC Radio as Book of the Week and was a Sunday Times bestseller. She writes for many newspapers and magazines, as well as her regular column, the Nature Notebook, at The Times.

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Praise for OWL SENSE:

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'Darlington gives back a sense of dignity and wildness to a creature that captures our imagination like no other' The Times

'Achingly beautiful' The Observer

'A beautiful book, wise and sharp-eared as its subject.' Robert Macfarlane

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Read a review here:

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https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/feb/17/owl-sense-by-miriam-darlington-review?CMP=share_btn_tw

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and here:

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https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/book-review-owl-sense-by-miriam-darlington-dqk38hqjt

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Owl Sense is a book about the wild in nature and in the unpredictable course of our human lives. In her watching and deep listening to owls in the natural world, Darlington cleaves myth from reality and brings the strangeness and magnificence of these creatures to life.

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"Her softness took my breath away. Deadly beauty. She turned her face towards me. There is a narrow area that falls between pleasing and preposterous, and this owl’s circular face and bright yellow eyes fitted into it with perfect grace..."

Owls have captivated the human imagination for millennia. We have fixated on this night hunter as predator, messenger, emblem of wisdom or portent of doom. In Owl Sense, Miriam Darlington sets out to tell a new story.

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Her fieldwork begins with wild encounters in the British Isles, on the owl walks she takes with her teenage son Benji. From here, Darlington seeks to identify every European species of this charismatic and elusive bird, on a journey that will take her from southern Spain through France, Serbia and Finland, and to the frosted borders of the Arctic.

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This book explores our ongoing, complex often contradictory connection with wild animals. It uncovers the occasional potential wild animals have for wise teaching in our busy and complicated modern lives. Above all, Owl Sense gives back a sense of dignity and wildness to a creature that has been mythologised and cutified like no other.

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Miriam is available for talks and readings, especially during 2018 while she is on sabbatical from Plymouth University.

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