AUTHOR

Megan Kate Nelson

Biographies & Memoirs | History

Hi there! I’m Megan Kate Nelson, a writer, historian, road cyclist, and cocktail enthusiast. My new book, "Saving Yellowstone: Exploration and Preservation in Reconstruction America," was published by Scribner on March 1, 2022 - the 150th anniversary of the Yellowstone Act, which created the first national park in the world. I am also the author of "The Three-Cornered War: The Union, the Confederacy, and Native Peoples in the Fight for the West" (Scribner, 2020), which was a Finalist for the 2021 Pulitzer Prize in History. I am an expert in the history of the American Civil War, the U.S. West, and popular culture. I have written articles about these topics for The New York Times, Washington Post, The Atlantic, Smithsonian Magazine, and TIME. My column on Civil War popular culture, “Stereoscope,” appears regularly in the Civil War Monitor. I have also written two previous books: "Ruin Nation: Destruction and the American Civil War" (Georgia, 2012) and "Trembling Earth: A Cultural History of the Okefenokee Swamp" (Georgia, 2005). I earned my BA in History and Literature from Harvard University and my PhD in American Studies from the University of Iowa. Before leaving academia to write full-time in 2014, I taught U.S. history and American Studies at Texas Tech University, Cal State Fullerton, Harvard, and Brown. You can find me on Twitter and Instagram at @megankatenelson