Hi there! My name is Gretchen, and I’m a creative writer and photographer living in Stillwater, Oklahoma. I’ve been visiting the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve in Osage Nation since fall 2016, when I moved to Oklahoma to begin a PhD program in creative nonfiction. I’d never visited a tallgrass ecosystem before, but I quickly fell in love with the bison, tallgrasses, and wind. I’m grateful to Osage Nation and The Nature Conservancy for the work they do to preserve this vital space. My hope is this virtual prairie will create some peace and inspire you to learn more about the prairie ecosystem, or even to come for a visit! The bison are always jazzed to meet you (from a distance hahaha). In my free time, I serve as a volunteer docent for the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve.

For my creative writing / author site, visit here.

Official-ish bio below 😉

Gretchen VanWormer is the author of a chapbook of essays, How I See The Humans (CutBank: University of Montana), and her individual essays have appeared or are forthcoming in Ecotone, The Los Angeles Review, The Journal, Prairie Schooner, DIAGRAM, Brevity, and elsewhere. Her photography has appeared in Orion Magazine. She received a 2016 Individual Artist Fellowship from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, and was a 2018-19 Oklahoma Art Writing and Curatorial Fellow with the Oklahoma Visual Arts Coalition (OVAC). In her free time, she serves as a volunteer docent for the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve in Pawhuska, OK, where she teaches visitors from as far as Transylvania about the tallgrass ecosystem and its cycles of burning and renewal.