Jackie Higgins Interview, plus links to author biography, book summaries, excerpts and reviews

An interview with Jackie Higgins

Jackie Higgins introduces herself.

Growing up in Cornwall by the sea - spending much of my childhood outdoors, on the beach, poking around in rock pools - fostered a fascination with nature. At Oxford University, I was taught evolution and animal behavior by Richard Dawkins, as well as epidemiology, ecology and conservation, eventually I graduated with an MA in Zoology.

I worked for Oxford Scientific Films making wildlife films for the BBC and National Geographic. My first day in the office involved stinging my boss with a bee – he showed me where on his arm the lens was focused so we could get a macro shot of a sting for a film we were making on bees in the Panamanian rainforest. I filmed in many places around the world: bats pollinating saguaro cactuses in Arizona, warring woodpeckers in the peaceful Californian Carmel Valley, to seed dispersal in the rare Coco de Mer forests of the Seychelles. OSF was world renowned for its expertise in unusual photographic techniques: cameras to play with time (e.g. hi-speed photography to show seed pods exploding, time-lapse to show flowers budding, locked shots to show landscapes changing through seasons) or lenses to play with size (e.g. macro lenses to show microscopic creatures or endoscopes to reveal unusual points of view).

I next worked in the Science Department at the BBC making narrative documentaries across all scientific disciplines for the Horizon strand (sometimes co-produced with PBS Nova or The Discovery Channel): I covered the SARS epidemic from the WHO headquarters in Geneva and filmed quite a few people who have been in the news throughout this year. I debunked Atlantis myths by exploring the origins of Egyptian and Mexican cultures, exposed the truth behind the Atkins diet, followed magic men in India to explain the science behind their trickery, a team of evolutionary biologists in Latvia studying fossils to understand how our distant ancestors first crawled out of the oceans and a team of anthropologists into the remote Indonesian forests of Flores in search of one of the most important ancient hominin fossils of the last century; she became known as 'the hobbit'.

It is therefore no surprise among my favorite books are The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat by Oliver Sacks, A Natural History of the Senses by Diane Ackerman and Desmond Morris' The Naked Ape.

Unless otherwise stated, this interview was conducted at the time the book was first published, and is reproduced with permission of the publisher. This interview may not be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the copyright holder.