A Conversation with a Cat
by Stephen Spotte
Stephen Spotte, a marine scientist, was born and raised in West Virginia. He has been a field biologist for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Waterways Experiment Station (Vicksburg, Mississippi); curator and later director of Aquarium of Niagara Falls (New York); curator of the New York Aquarium and Osborn Laboratories of Marine Science (Brooklyn, New York); director of Mystic Aquarium (Mystic, Connecticut); executive director of Sea Research Foundation and research scientist at the Marine Sciences and Technology Center, University of Connecticut (Groton, Connecticut); principal investigator, Coral Reef Ecology Program (Turks and Caicos Islands, B.W.I.), and adjunct scientist at Mote Marine Laboratory (Sarasota, Florida).
Dr. Spotte has a B.S. degree from Marshall University, a Ph.D. from the University of Southern Mississippi, and is author or coauthor of more than 80 scientific papers on marine biology, ocean chemistry and engineering, and aquaculture. Field research has encompassed much of the coastal U.S., Canadian Arctic, Bering Sea, West Indies, Indo-West Pacific, Central America, and the Amazon basin of Ecuador and Brazil. His popular articles about the sea have appeared in National Wildlife, On the Sound, Animal Kingdom, Explorers Journal, and Science Digest.
Dr. Spotte has also published 19 books, including three volumes of fiction, a memoir, and a work of cultural theory. He is a Certified Wildlife Biologist of The Wildlife Society and also holds a U.S. Merchant Marine officer's license.
Dr. Spotte now lives and writes from his home in Longboat Key, Florida.
Stephen Spotte
Books by Stephen Spotte
In An Empty Room
Spanning the landscape from Vietnam's war-torn jungles to hardscrabble Appalachia, In An Empty Room is a gripping examination of time, memory, consciousness, and selfhood and suggests unanticipated conclusions about the nature of human identity.
A Conversation with a Cat
Stephen Spotte's imaginative novel recounts the tales of a scroungy former alley cat named Jinx, whose memories aren't just his own but those of other cats who existed before him, one of which was Annipe, Cleopatra's pampered pet.
Invisible: Stories
The 19 stories in marine scientist Stephen Spotte's latest collection penetrate the stormy, watery depth of the human psyche, blending elements of make-believe with sharp, systematic observations and insights into the twisted manifestations of life, love, and death.
The Singing Bones
The Singing Bones recounts the life and times of eighteenth century polymath and explorer Georg Wilhelm Steller, the first European naturalist to visit Alaska.
Witchy Illusions: A Novel
Witchy Illusions recounts the trial of Mademoiselle Ambrosine, a girl of fifteen accused of witchcraft in France in autumn 1515. Her lawyer is Barthélemy de Chassenée, a historical figure who became famous when in 1508 he defended the rats accused of eating the people’s grain stored at Autun’s granary and growing in nearby fields of the département of Saône-et-Loire.
Wiseguys in Paradise: A Novel
Sometimes wiseguys are nice guys!
Quantum Voices: A Novel
War, poverty, time and space, and the notions of identity and selfhood.
