Paleontology and Evolutionary Biology With Kristen Miller M.A.
By Jessica Marie Kristen Miller is a vertebrate paleontologist, she graduated with her Masters of Arts degree in Evolutionary Biology in spring 2021. She received her Bachelors of Arts from Colorado State University in Biological Anthropology. She has been doing paleontology for about five years now, and she is about to start her PhD in the fall of 2021. What drew you to anthropology and then to paleontology? When I graduated from high school, I had a varied list of things that I was interested in such as working in the film industry or book editor. Since I wasn’t sure what path I wanted to take, I went to a local community college to help me try different things in hopes of narrowing down a focus. There I took some anthropology classes. I first took cultural anthropology which was very interesting. I then looked into anthropology to see what else that field offered, which led me to find biological anthropology and I fell in love with it. Once I graduated with my Associates of Arts, I looked at what degrees were available at my local university, which was Colorado State University. I found they had a Bachelors of Biological Anthropology and signed up. My first year at CSU, I took a primate evolution course, which I loved. So, for a time, I thought I was going to change course a little and go into primatology research. But the same professor who taught that course, Kimberly Nichols, also taught a paleontology field school up in Wyoming. At first, I didn’t have an interest in paleontology, but I thought that having some field work in my resume would look good for graduate school. So, I signed up to take that field school. I went there not knowing anything about paleontology and I fell in love with it immediately. After I completed my first year of that field school, I went back for two more years as a Teaching Assistant and that sealed the deal for me. I knew all I wanted to do was field work to look for fossils. The best way to do that is to go to graduate school. I applied and got accepted to study evolutionary biology and specifically early primate evolution. Unfortunately, you can’t get paid only to look for fossils, you can volunteer but that’s not the same. You have to be working in a lab or museum to get paid to look for fossils, and to do those jobs you need a Doctorate. Which has led me down this path that I am on. What was your Masters Thesis and what will your Doctorate studies be? The Phylogenetic Reconstruction and Biogeographic Implications of Two New Species of Paromomyid Plesiadapiforms from a unique High Arctic Ecosystem of Eocene Canada was my Masters Thesis title. To break that down, a Plesiadapiform is an early mammal. These guys were around after the dinosaurs went extinct, 66-34 million years ago. These creatures have no living relatives or descendants that exist today. Their closest living relatives would be primates or colugos (flying lemurs, which are not actual lemurs). I was able to study two new species of plesiadapiforms from Elsmere Island in Northeastern Canada close to Greenland. This was interesting as they were in the arctic circle, so they would have lived in a polar light regime. Six months of light and six months of darkness. We don’t have any others that have lived in such extreme conditions. Which made for a really interesting research opportunity. I looked at their phylogenetics, how they are related to other plesiadapiforms and their relation to plesiadapiforms from North American and Europe. Which are they more closely related to, if either. I also looked at their geographic distribution, how they got from where they lived before to where we found them in the arctic circle. For my PhD, I am not yet sure what I will be studying. I could carry on with my research from Elsmere Island. But I may look into other areas of research to broaden my knowledge and areas of research. I have recently found an interest in early mammals which were alive at the same time as the dinosaurs. But my current expertise is in the Paleocene and Eocene eras. How can you tell what climate these creatures were living in? We work closely with Geologists. They can tell where the continents were 55 million years ago, which is how old the fossils I studied for this Thesis were. They calculated the location was in the arctic circle, which we know experiences 6 months of daylight and 6 months of darkness, or some similar variation of a polar light regime. But the climate that far north during that time was much warmer. This was during the early Eocene climatic optimum, which was a very warm greenhouse event. There were no polar ice caps, winter temperatures even that far north would have only been just above freezing. It would have been fairly warm, so these plesiadapiforms didn’t have to survive arctic winters like we think of them now. We can tell this from the fauna, animal fossils, and flora, plant fossils. Such as finding turtles, alligators, or tropical plants, we know what climates these creatures live in now. Which gives us an idea of the climate of the area at that time. Where have you done most of your study or fossil finding? I have personally only worked in Wyoming. From CSU field school and even with my current advisor, we are working in Wyoming for the time being. The fossils I used for my Masters studies were found in the 1970’s by Paleontologist Mary Dawson. She and her team found them and those fossils have been passed down in the lab and I was able to study them. Unfortunately, I have never been to the arctic, but it snows year-round up there so I am not terribly disappointed to have not been up there, she chuckles. What are the most common types of fossils you have found? Perissodactyls, which are odd-toed ungulates. A living example would be horses or rhinos. These early relatives were much smaller in the Paleocene and Eocene eras, roughly dog-sized. They are very common to find fossil-wise. We also find Coryphodon throughout North America, they were about hippo size. We also find tiny primates and carnivores. It’s an exciting time period to be studying as we can see when mammals are beginning to diversify. Even though many of these plesiodapiforms don’t have direct living descendants that we can see alive today, it is amazing to see these early forms and what they evolved into as for what we do see around us today. What are your dream goals once you graduate? My dream job is to work in a museum doing fossil preparation, museum curation, or collections management. What do you like least or find the most frustrating about this field of study? For me, I love the field work. I wouldn’t trade that for anything. But the rest of the year is reading journal articles and doing tedious work with the fossils. And while it is working with fossils, which I love, the coding for each trait and taxa, and examining teeth under a microscope can get very tedious. Collecting data and compiling papers. I only get to do 2-4 weeks of actual field work a year, the rest of the year is in the lab. Being out in the field really recharges me and is the most amazing part of this field. What is it like being a woman in science? I feel very lucky with my experience so far. My teachers and mentors at CSU were very kind and encouraging. At my current universities’ lab, it is fairly well split between male and female. Everyone is encouraging and helpful in their areas of expertise. It isn’t like dinosaur paleontology, chemistry, or other STEM careers that are more male dominated. What has been the most exciting thing that has happened for you so far? Graduating with my masters was a very big accomplishment for me. I had been very nervous about defending my thesis, but I did it and I graduated with honors. It’s proof to myself that I can do this and I am good at it. I am also submitting my first academic journal article to be published by the end of the summer. Of course, finding fossils, especially very small ones that are easy to miss, are a huge boost for me. Do you work with a lot of scientists from other fields? Oh yes, we can and do talk with people in various fields who may have expertise in a field or have knowledge that I am less adept in. We seek each other out to ask questions. What are your hobbies? I read a lot, especially during off months when I am not reading journal articles all day. I enjoy reading fiction. I also love to bake. Baking is my creative passion, my creative outlet, a way of getting out of my type-A science brain. During the pandemic I did some macramé wall hangings. I have recently begun to take in a lot of house plants. My back-up goals if everything falls apart are to start a bakery or a goat farm in Scotland. Resources:
Find Kristen on Instagram @kristen.miller2756 and on Twitter @Kristen_paleo Hope you enjoyed learning about mammalian paleontology, evolutionary biology and more from the amazing Kristen Miller! Much Love, Jessica Marie
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Author Interview with Selina R. Gonzalez
By Jessica Marie I did an interview with six-time author Selina R. Gonzalez. She is a fantasy author and a Colorado native with mountains in her blood and dreams that top 14,000 feet. She loves chocolate, fantasy, costumes, bread, history, superheroes, faux leather, things that sparkle, learning random bits of knowledge, snark, and Jesus–not in that order. She loves all things medieval Europe and is a huge Anglophile. She studied Medieval British history during a semester abroad at the University of Oxford. She also took medieval history and literature courses while earning her bachelor’s in history at Colorado State University, where she graduated in May 2018. Selina loves to travel, and has driven coast-to-coast in the US, visited Britain three times, and moved to Maine for four and half months. She has a list of places to go as long as Pikes Peak is tall, but she always comes back home to Colorado. Tell us a little about yourself. I am the author of six independently published fantasy books, including Prince of Shadow and Ash and a Thieving Curse, which is my most recent release. I am also a freelance fiction editor and book formatter. I’ve been writing fiction off and on since I was about 14 years old, which is when I started attending writer’s conferences, reading books and blogs on fiction writing, and the publishing industry. But I only started publishing recently. My first novella I published in eBook form only in November of 2019. Then released a paperback in January of 2020. Also, in 2020 I published two more novels, a novella, and a novelette. This year I published one more novel. I honestly do not recommend doing that much in one year, she chuckles. I got very burnt out. How did you keep up with that pace of writing and releasing? Part of it was, I had a lot written before releasing. The novels I released in 2020 were already written and in the process of being revised. The novella and the novelette that were released were related to those novels. So, all the planning and characterization work was already done. So, it was a little easier than writing an entire new book and story. But I did get kind of burnt out by the end of 2020. Know what you can do and pace yourself. How did you come to your publishing conclusions? Since high school my plan had been to be traditionally published. To go through the process of querying agents and submitting to publishers. But since about 2018 and 2019 I got involved with online writing communities and writers’ groups on Facebook, which is where I began to meet more independent or self-published authors. What is self-publishing or indie publishing? Self-published and indie published or independently published are fairly interchangeable terms. Though many self-published writers, myself included, prefer the term independently published writer or author. As it emphasizes that we are approaching this as a business because that’s what it really is. Self-publishing sounds like we are doing everything ourselves, which is not usually the case. It varies from author to author how much and what they do themselves. But most authors are hiring out contractors for at least cover design, various edits, proof-reading, formatting, etc. But the term indie publishing can confuse some people as there are indie small presses. Which operate similarly to the bigger publishers. You don’t usually need an agent to work with them, but you do still need to submit and be accepted by their acquisitions team, and work with their editors. Then they foot the bill for things like editing, covers, royalties, etc. So, the term indie author can mean independently published or having worked with and through an indie press. There is this impression we get or are given from some places that indie publishing is for failed writers, or those who cannot get accepted by traditional publishing houses or methods. It wasn’t until I started to meet indie published authors online and checked out their books that I realized, dang, these are really good books! Which launched me into research mode. I honestly spent months researching and making excel spreadsheets with pros and cons lists. I wanted to make the best decision for myself and my work. I didn’t fall into self-publishing, I chose it. I learned how to indie publish and how to do it well. I spent a lot of time looking into traditional versus indie publishing. As both methods have their own drawbacks as well as advantages. Ultimately, I decided I wanted the greater control and speed offered by self-publishing. With traditional publishing it can take months to years of querying agents. Once you get an agent and find someone who is a good fit for you, then your agent has to query publishers. That process can take months to years. If you get to a point where you can sign a contract with a publisher, their editorial team will ask for changes which you may not want to make. For example, title or plot changes. After all that it can still take 6-12 months before you see your book in print. I decided I didn’t have the patience for that, and published them myself. Traditionally publishing will provide you with an advance royalty, which those paychecks are steadily decreasing. But that is also a check against your future royalties. So, you will not get another check until the publishing house recuperates that cost from books sold. No matter how you publish, the average author makes less than the minimum wage when you add up the hours spent versus return income. I started publishing in November of 2019 and May was the first month that I operated at a tiny profit. Which will immediately be going back into expenses. How did you become a freelancer? Freelancing is something I decided to do at the beginning of this year. Part of it was that I had learned how to do my own formatting for my books as a way of saving money. I am constantly learning new things and I get excited every time I learn a new trick and apply it. I decided I could do this to keep my skills sharp and help other authors. Plus, it is very hard to make a living as an author. I wanted to do something writing related, flexible, and that still allowed me to write. What is your writing process like? Honestly, I lean toward plotting and outlining things. I like to have a fairly good outline before I dive in. I have tried a few times to completely pants a book, and usually, it just does not get finished. But I do a combo of planning and pantsing. As I am drafting and writing, things will change. Characters will go, ‘nah, I wouldn’t actually do that’ and I have to adjust. A timeline might not make sense or may drag on, so I may trim or remove it. I write my outline and let the things change course if they need to. The rabbit trails that arise don’t always work and may get cut, but sometimes they do and I keep them. I also find that it varies from project to project. Prince of Shadow and Ash I had a pretty solidly outlined story and it didn’t change a whole lot from outline to finished book. But Staff of Nightfall had big holes in the outline, so it changed a decent amount. A Thieving Curse, I had written the outline years prior, but when I came back to it, I wrote almost the entire thing without looking at the outline. The bones stayed the same, but it did turn out different from the outline. What writing advice would you like to give? Writers love to give advice like, ‘this is what worked for me so it must work for everyone!’ But that isn’t the case. It is an art and everyone writes differently. Some authors can pants a story and it comes out perfectly, some only abide by strict outlines. It is subjective and whatever works for you and your story is the right answer. But it is good to try different methods and see what works best for you. If you try something and it doesn’t work, it doesn’t mean you are a failed writer. It simply means that method didn’t work for you. Tips for aspiring authors. It is a lot of work! It is also a lot of fun. If you are never having fun, then you may need to take a closer look as to why you are writing in the first place. But it is not always going to be fun. Some days are a lot like pulling teeth. There is a lot to think about and keep track of like continuity details, plot, character development, crafting strong prose, understanding grammar, punctuation, etc. It is also something fairly personal. I often put my own values into the characters and stories. It takes hours of work and many tears to write, edit multiple times, get feedback, edit again, then finally release into the world where not everyone is even going to like it. It is an art, it is subjective, not everyone is going to like it, and that is okay. Then there is the whole business side. You don’t just write a book, throw it online, and call it a day. If you are self-publishing you need to hire cover artists, decide paperback size, buy ISBN’s, make sure you don’t break any laws, know copyright, etc. No matter if you self or traditionally publish you have to be your own marketer. The author does the bulk of their own marketing. So, you will need to build and maintain a website, run social media, decide prices, run sales, pay for ads, do accounting, taxes, figure out shipping, sales tax, etc. All this to say, please know this is not easy. It is not a get rich quick scheme. It is a lot of growing, learning, and work. Which can be so much fun and be a beautiful process. I love looking back and seeing how much I have grown and learned. But sometimes the process is just hard work. Even if you traditionally publish you may not think you will need to know the legal side as much, but you will need to know how to read and understand contracts. There will be a lot of teamwork with your agents and publishers. Or lots of research if you go the indie route. Know what you are getting into. I am not trying to be a discouragement, but I also don’t want to sugarcoat this process and career. People often think this is going to be easy. When it turns out to be hard, they are discouraged and may want to quit as they didn’t know what it would really be like. If you want this, know it will be hard, but it will also be worth it. You need to know why you are writing. Something that motivates you outside of prestige or money as it is such a small fraction of authors who become James Patterson, Danielle Steel, Leigh Bardugo, or Pierce Brown. You can’t do it because it’s fun either, because, as we have covered, there will be many a day when it is not fun. On those days your why will keep you motivated. Answer these questions. What does success look like to me? What do I want to accomplish? Why do I want to write and publish this specific book? Who am I writing this book for? Why is this story so important to me? Who do I want to read this book? These truths can be a lifeline to cling to when it’s difficult, when it isn’t selling as much or as fast as you hoped it would. Which is how I decided to publish the Mercenary and the Mage duology when I did. I had A Thieving Curse written at the time, but decided to publish those two first. The Mercenary and the Mage duology was my, if I die tomorrow, I want these to be published as they were very important to me. Your why and your community are what will sustain you over the course of your writing career. Steps from first draft to publishing? One. You should self-edit at least once before ever looking for a beta reader. After writing I get other people to read it. Don’t ever publish a book that no one has ever given you feedback on. Your mom doesn’t count, she has to say it’s good. You need feedback from different people with different backgrounds as much as possible. Don’t pay for beta readers, at least I never have, people will want to beta read. Being involved, friendly, and helpful to other writers in writing communities will help. Fully explain the story and ask if anyone is interested in reading and giving feedback by x date and see who agrees. You can also get beta readers from your social following. For example, on Instagram I talk about my WIP’s a lot and it gets people excited about the story. When I am looking for beta readers, I can reach out to interested followers and some are more than happy to read the story that they have been following. Beta-readers are for when you have a pretty good handle on the story, you feel confident you have done all you can. Then you send it to beta-readers to give feedback on the story as a whole, characters, and plotlines. They give you feedback on making sure it is understandable and people as a whole are liking the story, characters, etc. Two. Set a budget. It is very easy to go over budget. Know how much you can afford to spend and keep that in mind when progressing. Also, know the purpose of your work. Will it be a freebie or a product to sell? Those answers will decide how much you spend on the process. Three. Make sure you are legally allowed to use any images or fonts that you use in relation to your work. Four. Cover design. I went through my online writer’s communities to find cover designers that they used, liked, or recommended. You can get a stock cover from a designer where they will only change the words and name, these are cheap but not customizable. Cost is maybe $25-$150. Or you can have a custom cover created, which, costs can vary on designer, experience, and what you want for a cover. But they can be anywhere from $200-$900. Which is why I taught myself how to format so I could save money on that and put more towards a cover. Five. You will need to buy a proof copy to ensure it printed correctly. Six. Many authors do pre-order goodies now. But that cost, no matter how you publish, comes from your own pocket. Deciding what you will provide, the cost of the goods, and cost of shipping and shipping supplies needs to be factored and decided. Here is a rough outline of the steps. All plot and characterization must be completed first. This comes from your beta readers, editors, etc. Then Line edits, then proofreading. Book formatting lets you know pages, pages informs book spine size which goes to your cover designer. These executive functions can take about six months to complete. My suggestion (as is Make Your Mark Publishing) when deciding when to announce a book release date, it is best to have everything done first. Don’t announce your release date until you have all of the above steps complete. You could release the book tomorrow if you wanted to, but you have nothing to wait on so you can focus on marketing. This is good in case any set-backs occur anywhere in the process, you are not stressed about release date pre-order punishments. For example, Amazon eBook pre-orders will let you push back a release once for up to 30-days, after that you have to cancel it and there are repercussions for that. How do you cope with harsh reviews? Being an author can be a bit of a lonely job as you are alone a lot. Having family and friends to turn to is good. But it is even more helpful to have author friends who are having the same experiences as you and can understand more fully. You can lean on each other. Also, keep in mind that reviews are subjective. Writing is an art and not everyone will like it, remember that people will receive your work differently. You can get reviews where one person says x character is underdeveloped and the very next review can be full of praise for the same character saying how well developed and well-written they are. We bring our own understanding, baggage, expectations, and tastes into a story and it can affect how we understand or like a book, story, scene, or character. Another way of looking at it is to see it like food. We don’t get offended if someone doesn’t, like me for example, enjoy pineapple. If you offer me something with pineapple in it, I am not going to like it. It doesn’t mean you’re a bad cook, or that the food isn’t well made. I simply don’t like pineapple, so I just don’t like that dish. I also don’t read very many reviews. If this person didn’t understand it, but maybe I didn’t write it for them. But you also get good feedback. When someone relates to a scene or character and they feel held, helped, or validated from something you wrote, that is cool to see. Tell us about A Thieving Curse. It was my most challenging release yet. The cover I wanted matte but it kept glitching and coming out glossy. My eBook, the release date didn’t get changed so the day I had my cover reveal, Barnes & Noble showed it as published and available. But it was also my most successful release yet. It has been doing well, I have gotten many good reviews, people are posting photos of it on Instagram. This is the first book I released a hardcover, which I designed the naked hardcover, and people are loving that design. It has gotten some fan art which is like a dream come true. It is a young adult Beauty and the Beast re-imagining. About a princess who is separated from her family on their way to her arranged marriage to the crown prince. She is found by a cursed dragon-man who claims that he is the rightful crown-prince, who is living in hiding because of his curse. This released in April and is available from most major online retailers. You can find Selina and her work at the following:
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AuthorJessica Marie Cunningham - Intentional lifestyle blogger, aspiring author, and podcast host. All things Slow Living, Books, Writing, Art, creativity, Christianity, and personal stories. Archives
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