Eleanor Spicer Rice: Common Ants

Advance copy: Backstories on books by NASW members

Common Ants cover

DR. ELEANOR’S BOOK OF COMMON ANTS
Eleanor Spicer Rice (NASW member) and Rob Dunn
Photos by Alex Wild
University of Chicago Press, September 15, $18.00
ISBN-10 : 022644581X; ISBN-13: 9780226445816

Rice reports:

Whether they’re snuggled in your acorns or sleeping under your doormat, ants surround you, quietly running the world as you go about your life.

This book explores the lifestyles and curious habits of the ants you’re most likely to encounter, from the kitchen-crusading odorous house ant (which smells just like blue cheese!) to the seed-planting winnow ant.

About seven years ago, two North Carolina State University biologists, Rob Dunn and Andrea Lucky, wondered which ants people were most likely to encounter in the United States. Acknowledging that we’ve cataloged remote tropical forests and global biological hot spots, they wanted to discover what’s actually living around us. To find out, Dunn and Lucky asked citizens across the country to collect and mail ants to N.C. State’s School of Ants project.

Eleanor Spicer Rice, photo by Raymond Goodman

What they found shocked us myrmecologists. Not only were children mailing specimens from unlikely places, but some of our most common ants were so poorly understood they didn’t even have common names. We decided to write a book to introduce people to their often-overlooked neighbors and sometimes housemates.

Ants are ubiquitous. By watching them, we can learn a lot about our world. This book is a primer, guiding children and beyond through their world underfoot, and hopefully helping them form connections with some of the most abundant animals on earth.

We started the book as a free e-book. It later was picked up by the University of Chicago Press. The e-book was funded in part by grants from the NSF and Burroughs Wellcome fund. The University of Chicago Press later provided an advance to fund the series’ three location-specific books, Dr. Eleanor’s Book of Common Ants of California, Chicago, and New York City.

I had the pleasure of scouring peer-reviewed journals for tidbits on each species, and translating those tidbits into digestible stories for the general public. About halfway through the process, I began to interview researchers who’d devoted their careers to studying specific species. In hindsight, I would have contacted them earlier, as anybody who knows these ants understands their endearing characteristics — delightful mannerisms that come to life with the help of photos by the world-renowned myrmecologist and ant photographer Alex Wild.

Contact info:

Eleanor Spicer Rice, 919-272-3143, eleanor.spicer@gmail.com, www.verdantword.com, Twitter: @verdanteleanor
Book website: http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/D/bo25879959.html
Blog: www.buzzhootroar.com
Publicist: Nicholas Lilly, 773-702-7490, nlilly@uchicago.edu

NASW members: will your book be published soon? Take advantage of this opportunity for shameless self-promotion. Submit your report for Advance Copy.

Tell your fellow NASW members how you came up with the idea for your book, developed a proposal, found an agent and publisher, funded and conducted research, and put the book together. Include what you wish you had known before you began working on your book, or had done differently.

See https://www.nasw.org/advance-copy-submission-guidelines.

Thinking of writing a book? If you are a NASW member, you may access a list of more than 150 books and online resources to help you craft your book proposal, find an agent and funding sources, negotiate your contract, learn about self-publishing, publicize and market your book, and more at https://www.nasw.org/article/write-book.

Send book info and questions about book publishing to Lynne Lamberg, NASW book editor, llamberg@nasw.org.

Advance Copy

The path from idea to book may take myriad routes. The Advance Copy column, started in 2000 by NASW volunteer book editor Lynne Lamberg, features NASW authors telling the stories behind their books. Authors are asked to report how they got their idea, honed it into a proposal, found an agent and a publisher, funded and conducted their research, and organized their writing process. They also are asked to share what they wish they’d known when they started or would do differently next time, and what advice they can offer aspiring authors. Lamberg edits the authors’ answers to produce the Advance Copy reports.

NASW members: Will your book be published soon? Visit www.nasw.org/advance-copy-submission-guidelines for information on submitting your report.

Publication of NASW author reports in Advance Copy does not constitute NASW's endorsement of any publication or the ideas, values, or material contained within or espoused by authors or their books. We hope this column stimulates productive discussions on important topics now and in the future as both science and societies progress. We welcome your discussion in the comments section below.