Bren Smith
Restorative ocean farmer, co-founder of GreenWave, and author of Eat Like a Fish
Susan Casey
New York Times-bestselling author of The Underworld and former editor in chief of O, The Oprah Magazine
“All the technology in the world won't help us if we approach the planet we live on as an adversary.”
Photo courtesy of the author
Susan Casey is an award-winning journalist, bestselling author, and premiere chronicler of the aquatic world. A powerful and engaging voice for our environment, Casey inspires audiences to pursue change and look at the world beneath the waves. While researching The Underworld she traversed the globe, joining scientists and explorers on dives to the deepest places on the planet.
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About Susan Casey
Susan Casey is the author of four New York Times bestsellers, The Devil’s Teeth: A True Story of Obsession and Survival Among America’s Great White Sharks; The Wave: In Pursuit of the Rogues, Freaks, and Giants of the Ocean; Voices in the Ocean: A Journey Into the Wild and Haunting World of Dolphins; and The Underworld: Journeys to the Depths of the Ocean. Her combination of immersive reporting, intense scientific research, and evocative prose have made her books contemporary classics of adventure writing and solidified her standing as the premiere chronicler of the aquatic world. In The Underworld: Journeys to the Depths of the Ocean, she reveals the fascinating world of the deep-sea life and demonstrates how vital these environments are to the future of the planet.
In her lectures, Casey delves into these thrilling investigations and speaks about her research and personal experiences, such as venturing into 70-foot waves, living among a neighborhood of great white sharks, swimming the open seas with a pod of dolphins, or diving 5,000 meters to explore the abyss of the ocean floor. She is a master storyteller, at home discussing cutting-edge science, extreme risk-taking, environmental issues, ocean mysteries, the media landscape, or her own inspiring, unusual career. She is the former editor-in-chief of O, The Oprah Magazine, and has also served as the development editor for Time Inc.; editor in chief of Sports Illustrated Women; editor at large for Time Inc.; and creative director of Outside magazine, where she was part of the editorial team that developed the stories behind the bestselling books Into Thin Air and The Perfect Storm, as well as the movie Blue Crush.
Casey’s work has garnered multiple National Magazine Awards and been featured in the Best American Science and Nature Writing, Best American Sports Writing, and Best American Magazine Writing anthologies. Her work has appeared in Vanity Fair, The New York Times, Esquire, Sports Illustrated, Fortune, Time, and National Geographic. She has made numerous TV appearances, including The Oprah Winfrey Show, The Daily Show, Charlie Rose, Conan, Anderson Cooper 360, Nightline, Good Morning America, Today, The CBS Morning Show, and others. Casey is also a frequent guest on NPR. Her lecture venues include Apple, Google, the Medill School of Journalism, American Institute of Graphic Arts, American Society of Magazine Editors, Magazine Publishers Association, Maui Arts and Cultural Center, the Chicago Gift Market, the Marina Recreation Association, and the National Writers Series.
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Speaking Topics
Uncovering the Ocean's Secrets
For two decades (and counting), Susan Casey has embedded with marine scientists as they endeavor to solve the ocean’s many mysteries. Is the giant squid a ferocious predator or a shy opportunist? What is it like at the bottom of the Mariana Trench? Why are ancient marine microbes the source of our next-generation medicines? Did life begin at a deep-sea hydrothermal vent? In this talk, Casey unveils the latest discoveries and the technologies making them possible—and explains why a deeper understanding of the undersea world is essential if we hope to thrive in the world above.
Living in a Stormier, More Aquatic World
As the engine that runs the climate, the ocean is key to our understanding of global warming. From increasingly fierce storms and more destructive waves, to rising sea levels, to how marine habitats are being altered even in the earth’s deepest waters, Susan Casey takes audiences on a narrative seagoing adventure as she explains how a changing ocean will affect us all.
Adventure, Awe, and Humility: How Nature Enriches Us
Living among great white sharks, surfing down the face of a fifty-foot wave, swimming with wild dolphins and whales, diving four miles into the ocean’s abyss: these sublime experiences have been part of Susan Casey’s reporting for her bestselling ocean-related books. In this lecture she takes audiences along with her, describing the profound humility that comes from being immersed in nature’s grandeur, and why that humility is a superpower we often overlook. This is a heartfelt talk, full of revelations about how embracing the wild and the awesome adds meaning to our lives, in an age when so many of us are seeking that.
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Praise for Susan Casey
Praise for The Devil’s Teeth
An evocative and entertaining account of the cutting edge of marine biology.
— New ScientistExtraordinary.
— Men's JournalSusan Casey’s lively portrait of life among Northern California’s white sharks and the dogged researchers who study them indulges in just the right mix of anxiety, gore and reassuring shark science. One can find reason to fear the waves and then muster the courage to enter them, usually within the same chapter…The sharks are the stars of Casey’s story, but the Farallones steal the show.
— The New York Times Book ReviewPraise for The Wave
Extraordinary…I’m only allowed 800 words for this review. Here are a few: fascinating, heroic, dazzling, terrifying, amazing, unbelievable, mesmerizing, instructive, enlightening, superb. This is the Dragon Tattoo, Moby Dick, Into Thin Air for our time; a powerful, articulate ride into a world you never knew existed but that you will never, never forget.
— Globe and MailYou think Jaws made you fear the ocean? In this adrenaline rush of a book, Casey describes 'nature's biggest tantrum.' Her eerie, majestic descriptions make The Wave an unsettling thrill ride that's as terrifying as it is awe-inspiring.
— PeopleImmensely powerful, beautiful, addictive and, yes, incredibly thrilling…Casey unlocks the mysteries of waves in her fascinating and enlightening book. And like a surfer who is happily hooked, the reader simply won’t be able to get enough of it.
— San Francisco ChroniclePraise for Voices in the Ocean
Casey skillfully weaves global adventure travelogues, first-person reportage and deep archival research. She exhibits a flair for peppering her tales with complex scientific concepts but keeps them accessible for consumption by a broader audience without losing the narrative arc or momentum.
— The Miami HeraldWhat starts out as a feel-good, new-agey account darkens like the sunlight diminishing in the deep, subtly turning into a devastating chronicle of one of the most egregious mismatches in natural-human history. The result is a brilliantly written and passionate book. . . . timely and urgent.
— The GuardianPart science, part memoir, part impassioned plea for change, [Voices in the Ocean] fascinates.
— People[A] blend of mystic wonder with scientific awe and downright dangerous environmental confrontations.
— InStyle“Casey transports us through the many truths and myths about dolphins…. Painstakingly researched and gorgeously written, Voices in the Ocean provides textbook-depth education that is based on Casey’s years of swimming the open seas with dolphins, interviews with leading experts and protectors, and harrowing trips to the nether reaches of the globe where horrific brutalities occur.
— USA Today -
Books by Susan Casey
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Media About Susan Casey
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Featured Title
The Underworld
"Masterful and mesmerizing, Susan Casey's The Underworld is an irresistible mix of splendid scholarship, heart-stopping adventure writing, and vivid, visceral prose. Her book about the ocean's deeps is both uplifting and profound in the literal sense. I was riveted to every page."
—Sy Montgomery, author of The New York Times bestseller The Soul of an Octopus
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