Arts & Culture

Richard Conniff Swims with Piranhas and Lives To Tell About It

By Maureen Cavanaugh / KPBS Midday Edition Co-Host, Angela Carone / Cultural Enterprise Reporter

Published May 7, 2009 at 7:14 AM PDT

This story was published more than 15 years ago.

Award-winning nature writer Richard Conniff tells one adventurous tale after another in his new book Swimming With Piranhas At Feeding Time: My Life Doing Dumb Stuff with Animals.

Maureen Cavanaugh: We share this planet with a host of living creatures we hardly know. We may have named most kinds of animals and insects, we may know what many of them look like, but much of our understanding of their behavior is made up of a mix of truth and fantasy. Luckily, one nature writer's fantasy is to find out the truth about animals. Richard Conniff has been hanging out with exotic wildlife all over the world, along with investigating some tiny critters perhaps too close to home. And in the tradition of truth being stranger and often funnier than fiction, he's observed amazing things about the way living creatures really behave.

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Richard Conniff is an award-winning nature writer and frequent commentator on NPR. His eighth and latest book is a collection of essays called Swimming With Piranhas at Feeding Time: My Life Doing Dumb Stuff with Animals.

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Maureen Cavanaugh

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Maureen Cavanaugh has been a familiar voice for KPBS listeners for more than 15 years, serving in a variety of capacities including announcer, host, and producer. As host of KPBS Midday Edition, Maureen has interviewed a wide range of notables, such as comedienne Sandra Bernhardt, actor John Lequizamo, author Chuck Palahniuk, composer Marvin Hamlisch, artist Robert Irwin, and designer Zandra Rhodes. But of all the interviews Maureen has conducted, her most special was with His Holiness, the Dalai Lama. Before joining KPBS in 1997, she worked as a news anchor for KSDO and KOGO News Radio in San Diego. While working for commercial radio stations in San Diego and in Salt Lake City, Utah, Maureen reported on both hard news and lifestyle features. Maureen has received three "Golden Mike" awards from the Radio and TV News Association of Southern California for economic reporting and breaking news. She has also received a "Best of Show" and “Best Radio Newscast” awards from the San Diego Press Club and the "Flo" Award from Public Radio Program Directors Association for Best Public Radio Announcer in a large market. Maureen is a native of Queens, New York, but after more than 20 years in San Diego she feels she qualifies as a real Southern Californian.

What do you want to hear host Jade Hindmon talk about on Midday?

Angela Carone

Angela Carone covered arts and culture for KPBS and was the author of Culture Lust. Angela has produced public radio programs focused on the arts for the Atlanta and San Diego markets. In this role, she has covered topics ranging from books, film, theater, music, visual arts and pop culture. She also has more than 15 years experience in print media, having been published in various newspapers, alternative weeklies, and exhibition catalogs. Angela has degrees in political science from Pennsylvania State University and in English literature from Georgia State University. She is also a published photographer.

See stories by Angela Carone