Lago, Don 1956-

PERSONAL:

Born February 15, 1956, in Columbia, MO; son of G.V. Lago (a professor of engineering). Education: Attended George Washington University. Politics: Democrat. Hobbies and other interests: Hiking, kayaking, archaeology.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Flagstaff, AZ. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Writer. Augustana College, Rock Island, IL, Anders Lecturer, 2005.

WRITINGS:

On the Viking Trail: Travels in Scandinavian America, University of Iowa Press (Iowa City, IA), 2004.

Mything in Action: American Identity Lost and Searched For in the 2004 Election, iUniverse (Lincoln, NE), 2006.

Work represented in college textbook anthologies. Contributor to periodicals, including Orion, Earth, Antioch Review, Sky and Telescope, Science Digest, Air and Space—Smithsonian, Seattle Review, Trumpeter, Pulpsmith, and Astronomy.

SIDELIGHTS:

Don Lago told CA: "My books have explored American history with the tools of personal, creative nonfiction. One book explores the experiences of Scandinavian Americans, especially the way that Scandinavian, democratic, community, and environmental values have (or haven't) fit into American society. The second book explores America's basic national belief systems as they exhibited themselves in the 2004 presidential election. But most of my writing has been devoted to exploring nature and science, especially the new and dramatic cosmos that has been discovered over the last century. To explore the meaning of being a human in such a cosmos, I use the creative nonfiction tradition of the literary naturalists, which allows personal encounters with nature, although the nature I am exploring doesn't stop with the ground, but includes the sky and the evolutionary past. My first inspiration for this task was the writings of Loren Eiseley, who combined a scientific vision and a poetic vision into essays packed with wonder. My essays have been published frequently in nature and science and literary magazines."