Photo: Linda Hitchcock
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ABOUT MEI'm a biologist turned writer. After growing up in Australia, I received a Ph.D. at the University of London, England, and had a career as an entomologist before obtaining an MFA at the University of Arizona, where I'm currently a Regents' Professor Emerita.
I've published more than two hundred scientific papers and books and several popular biology articles, and I've edited five volumes of multi-author entomology books. I've published fifty poems and essays in a variety of literary journals and one book with Raised Voice Press. I've also self-published two nonfiction books. My newest book came out May 1, 2023. Also, with Linda Hitchcock, I've self-published three children books. |
NEW BOOK: Across the Divide
Published May 1, 2023
Nothing prepared Liz, the academic scientist (with a background in Australia and UK) for Linda, the quick-witted eighth-grade dropout from Texas excelling in malapropisms and outlandish jokes. Linda was still married and Liz a grieving widow. How could they sustain a relationship when they had such different personalities, backgrounds, and interests? But despite obvious incompatibilities, their chemistry was undeniable, and the extraordinary contrast was exciting for both of them.
Over time, each of them enthusiastically engaged the other in different pursuits and each of them bonded over the novelties. They introduced each other to their favorite entertainments, with mixed results (Linda found opera boring; Liz cheered for the wrong team at a University of Arizona basketball game). Linda's jokes kept them constantly alive to humor that offset the complexities of the lives they led when they were apart. But slowly, their shared love of nature, carefree RV trips, and travel abroad (with the help of antianxiety meds for Linda's first time on a plane), brought them ever closer. Maybe, they realized, they were more alike than they thought, as each pondered their love of being rebels. Maybe their differences were to be celebrated rather than overcome.
With humor and heart, Across the Divide: A Strange Love Affair reveals how possibilities unfold when we open ourselves to unlikely opportunities.
Over time, each of them enthusiastically engaged the other in different pursuits and each of them bonded over the novelties. They introduced each other to their favorite entertainments, with mixed results (Linda found opera boring; Liz cheered for the wrong team at a University of Arizona basketball game). Linda's jokes kept them constantly alive to humor that offset the complexities of the lives they led when they were apart. But slowly, their shared love of nature, carefree RV trips, and travel abroad (with the help of antianxiety meds for Linda's first time on a plane), brought them ever closer. Maybe, they realized, they were more alike than they thought, as each pondered their love of being rebels. Maybe their differences were to be celebrated rather than overcome.
With humor and heart, Across the Divide: A Strange Love Affair reveals how possibilities unfold when we open ourselves to unlikely opportunities.
Praise for Across the Divide
Across the Divide is a breathtaking lyrical memoir, the story of two very different souls “emerging from the strangeness of [their] disparities” to create the most unlikely and defying, yet wild and thrilling partnership. Their love comes only after each of them have experienced previous losses, and perhaps it is the deft, gentle exploration of past losses and unrealized dreams that allowed their love to bloom—and to last. Bernays’ scholarly, reflective voice contrasts sharply with her Texan-born lover’s gritty, tell-it-as-it-is jokester voice; the frequent use of real-time dialogue brings this story to life.
Dr. Kathryn Wagner
Psychologist and writer
This heartfelt memoir, full of humor and insight, depicts a life charged with uncertainties and bravery and joy, a life showing us what it's like to take risks to love someone who couldn’t be more different from ourselves, and revealing at the same time how utterly unique and yet universal it is to connect emotionally with another human being. Across the Divide is an engaging and transformative read.
Ken Lamberton
Author of Wilderness and Razor Wire and Chasing Arizona
This is a beguiling new memoir by entomologist and writer Elizabeth Bernays. In Across the Divide, Bernays tells the story of her love affair with Linda, an unlikely partner in every way. But this book isn’t just about the attraction of opposites. It’s a rumination on “seeing”—learning to see nature through each other’s eyes and observing oneself changed by the confounding nature of the “other.”
Gail Browne
Former director of the University of Arizona Poetry Center
Throughout her illustrious entomological career, Liz has delighted in challenging conventional wisdom, proposing and testing novel hypotheses that have profoundly changed the way we think about insects—so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that in this later chapter of life, she has again stepped outside the status quo. We are privileged to follow along as Liz turns her famous observational eye inward as well as outward to paint a portrait of a life full of insights, surprises, and love.
Martha Weiss
Professor, Georgetown University
Elizabeth Bernays has written a wonderful ode to life's transitions. In the shadow of the loss of her beloved husband and scientific collaborator, she meets Linda, who might as well be from a different planet. Linda helps light a new path for Liz that leads her out of the darkness. Bernays' portrait of her new life as a lesbian and writer is a deeply engaging memoir on the mystery of love, both for people and biodiversity.
Noah Whiteman
Professor, University of California, Berkeley
You can also read a review of Across the Divide at OnlineBookClub.org. (Check back here for more reviews as they happen.)
Dr. Kathryn Wagner
Psychologist and writer
This heartfelt memoir, full of humor and insight, depicts a life charged with uncertainties and bravery and joy, a life showing us what it's like to take risks to love someone who couldn’t be more different from ourselves, and revealing at the same time how utterly unique and yet universal it is to connect emotionally with another human being. Across the Divide is an engaging and transformative read.
Ken Lamberton
Author of Wilderness and Razor Wire and Chasing Arizona
This is a beguiling new memoir by entomologist and writer Elizabeth Bernays. In Across the Divide, Bernays tells the story of her love affair with Linda, an unlikely partner in every way. But this book isn’t just about the attraction of opposites. It’s a rumination on “seeing”—learning to see nature through each other’s eyes and observing oneself changed by the confounding nature of the “other.”
Gail Browne
Former director of the University of Arizona Poetry Center
Throughout her illustrious entomological career, Liz has delighted in challenging conventional wisdom, proposing and testing novel hypotheses that have profoundly changed the way we think about insects—so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that in this later chapter of life, she has again stepped outside the status quo. We are privileged to follow along as Liz turns her famous observational eye inward as well as outward to paint a portrait of a life full of insights, surprises, and love.
Martha Weiss
Professor, Georgetown University
Elizabeth Bernays has written a wonderful ode to life's transitions. In the shadow of the loss of her beloved husband and scientific collaborator, she meets Linda, who might as well be from a different planet. Linda helps light a new path for Liz that leads her out of the darkness. Bernays' portrait of her new life as a lesbian and writer is a deeply engaging memoir on the mystery of love, both for people and biodiversity.
Noah Whiteman
Professor, University of California, Berkeley
You can also read a review of Across the Divide at OnlineBookClub.org. (Check back here for more reviews as they happen.)
Praise for Six Legs Walking (2020)
Join Bernays in the fun of human interactions as an animal behaviorist. Follow her adventures of biological research around the world. Enjoy the organic, tumultuous process of research from the comfort of your armchair. The memoir is well written and honest, a colorful story full of joy and nostalgia.
Nicole Benda
Biology instructor, Santa Fe College
American Entomologist
[My husband] and I are in the midst of reading it now. Happily, it was easy to purchase through Amazon in France. What can I say? Hope Jahren sure can write but Liz Bernays leads by kilometers! Molting insects are indeed, sheer poetry but capturing that poetry in words is a feat only Liz has accomplished. And somehow she has closed the chasm in scientific memoirs like none other between crude but hilariously gerbil-like human behaviors before the #Metoo era and the questions about insects her scientific efforts contributed to understanding.
Valery Terwilliger
Professor (Adjunct), Department of Archaeology, Simon Fraser University
Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada
I want to thank you for publishing Six Legs Walking. I just finished reading your wonderful book. The book happily took me back to the days I was working on my Masters, PhD, and postdoctoral research. I remembered the incredible camaraderie and how hard we all worked and played. I was also intrigued with the biological aspects of the book. As a fisheries biologist I know very little of insects and the like, although I have a passion for photographing them. You have an unusual talent of being a renowned scientist and very talented author.
Bruce Taubert
Author of Wild in Arizona: Photographing Arizona's Wildlife
From the opening page—a nine-year-old Elizabeth in her parents’ garden—this delightful book is a nonstop soliloquy and homage to the beauty and wonder of insects and lifelong dedication to one’s true passions. Bernays’ childhood fascination with bugs seems all-consuming, and at the age of 11 she is already racing rhinoceros beetles and extracting silk from moth cocoons collected in a neighbor’s yard. And by the time she turns 13 she’s developed a special enthusiasm for grasshoppers and Lepidoptera, a zeal that stays with her through her entire academic career (and over 200 scientific publications). I found the use of insect biology terms as chapter titles for Bernays’ own life story especially charming. The chapter “Molting,” for example, tells of her transformation from child to adult (and falling in love for the first time). And like many insects, Elizabeth leads a migratory life, traveling the world in search of intellectual and emotional adventure. Readers can take many things from this autobiography, including the dedicated pursuit of one’s passion, the hard work and joy that accompanies a career in science, and the sheer wonder of the insect world.
You can also read reviews of Six Legs Walking by Compulsive Reader, First Person Naturalist, Entomologist’s Gazette, The Biologist, American Entomologist, & International Journal of Environmental Studies.
Nicole Benda
Biology instructor, Santa Fe College
American Entomologist
[My husband] and I are in the midst of reading it now. Happily, it was easy to purchase through Amazon in France. What can I say? Hope Jahren sure can write but Liz Bernays leads by kilometers! Molting insects are indeed, sheer poetry but capturing that poetry in words is a feat only Liz has accomplished. And somehow she has closed the chasm in scientific memoirs like none other between crude but hilariously gerbil-like human behaviors before the #Metoo era and the questions about insects her scientific efforts contributed to understanding.
Valery Terwilliger
Professor (Adjunct), Department of Archaeology, Simon Fraser University
Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada
I want to thank you for publishing Six Legs Walking. I just finished reading your wonderful book. The book happily took me back to the days I was working on my Masters, PhD, and postdoctoral research. I remembered the incredible camaraderie and how hard we all worked and played. I was also intrigued with the biological aspects of the book. As a fisheries biologist I know very little of insects and the like, although I have a passion for photographing them. You have an unusual talent of being a renowned scientist and very talented author.
Bruce Taubert
Author of Wild in Arizona: Photographing Arizona's Wildlife
From the opening page—a nine-year-old Elizabeth in her parents’ garden—this delightful book is a nonstop soliloquy and homage to the beauty and wonder of insects and lifelong dedication to one’s true passions. Bernays’ childhood fascination with bugs seems all-consuming, and at the age of 11 she is already racing rhinoceros beetles and extracting silk from moth cocoons collected in a neighbor’s yard. And by the time she turns 13 she’s developed a special enthusiasm for grasshoppers and Lepidoptera, a zeal that stays with her through her entire academic career (and over 200 scientific publications). I found the use of insect biology terms as chapter titles for Bernays’ own life story especially charming. The chapter “Molting,” for example, tells of her transformation from child to adult (and falling in love for the first time). And like many insects, Elizabeth leads a migratory life, traveling the world in search of intellectual and emotional adventure. Readers can take many things from this autobiography, including the dedicated pursuit of one’s passion, the hard work and joy that accompanies a career in science, and the sheer wonder of the insect world.
You can also read reviews of Six Legs Walking by Compulsive Reader, First Person Naturalist, Entomologist’s Gazette, The Biologist, American Entomologist, & International Journal of Environmental Studies.
Order Six Legs Walking:
Amoreuxia
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Staghorn cactus flowering.
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Aster flower with bee pollinator.
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LONGER BIOGRAPHY
I was born in Chinchilla, Queensland, and grew up in Brisbane where I become enchanted with plants and insects. At the University of Queensland I studied zoology, botany and entomology, after which I began a bohemian year mostly in London, England, and then taught high school biology in the East End of London. There I had fun with cockney humor and rhyming slang, while also obtaining a MS in Entomology at London University. This led to a Ph.D. in Entomology and then a job with the British government. I worked in several African countries and in India in between periods of research in the London-based laboratories.
After thirteen years of work as a British government scientist I became a professor of Entomology at the University of California Berkeley, and spent wonderfully happy years there where I was intellectually invigorated and socially converted to the hitherto unknown “American way.” All of this with my soul mate, Reg Chapman.
Finally, Reg and I were offered jobs at the University of Arizona: I came as head of the department of Entomology, Reg as a professor in Neurobiology, and so began many years of fruitful collaborative research, and a love affair with the Sonoran desert.
After Reg died, I turned my efforts more towards writing and obtained a Master of Fine Arts in creative writing. I explore the natural world, the meaning of experience, the strangeness of nostalgia in the form of memoir, but also the meaning of home and art, and the importance of sharing our lives with the rest of the living world.
After thirteen years of work as a British government scientist I became a professor of Entomology at the University of California Berkeley, and spent wonderfully happy years there where I was intellectually invigorated and socially converted to the hitherto unknown “American way.” All of this with my soul mate, Reg Chapman.
Finally, Reg and I were offered jobs at the University of Arizona: I came as head of the department of Entomology, Reg as a professor in Neurobiology, and so began many years of fruitful collaborative research, and a love affair with the Sonoran desert.
After Reg died, I turned my efforts more towards writing and obtained a Master of Fine Arts in creative writing. I explore the natural world, the meaning of experience, the strangeness of nostalgia in the form of memoir, but also the meaning of home and art, and the importance of sharing our lives with the rest of the living world.
On the beach in Queensland, Australia.
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In the Sonoran Desert with my cat, Bowtie.
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I live in historic downtown Tucson with my wife, Linda Hitchcock, our Labrador, Bandit, and our two cats, Bowtie and Monkey. The wilderness though, is essential for me so we travel a lot, and I like to get out and walk in the wild places, specially in Arizona, with its great diversity of geography, flora and fauna. I stop to examine and photograph the plants and animals, to watch insect behavior and listen to the birds sing.
I have been involved in surveying and photographing flowering plants in the Empire Mountains with Dr. Margaret Kidwell, and banding hummingbirds with Dr. Susan Wethington in Patagonia. For several years I worked with Tucson Unified School district to provide workable laboratory experiments for primary school students.
I have been involved in surveying and photographing flowering plants in the Empire Mountains with Dr. Margaret Kidwell, and banding hummingbirds with Dr. Susan Wethington in Patagonia. For several years I worked with Tucson Unified School district to provide workable laboratory experiments for primary school students.
Desert paintbrush.
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Gramma grass.
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