Alan Contreras

Alan L. Contreras is a writer and higher education consultant based in Eugene. A fourth-generation Oregonian born in Tillamook County, he has published twelve books and served as co-editor of Birds of Oregon (2003). His other major work includes Afield: Forty Years of Birding the American West (2009), Pursuit of Happiness: An Introduction to the Libertarian Ethos of C.E.S. Wood (2014), Edge of Awe: Experiences of the Malheur-Steens Country (editor, 2019) and Collected Poems of Ada Hastings Hedges (co-editor with Ulrich Hardt, 2020).

Author's Entries

  • Ernest G. “Gerry” Moll (1900–1997)

    Gerry Moll was an Oregon poet of the mid-twentieth century who served on the University of Oregon faculty for thirty-eight years. His collections Blue Interval and Campus Sonnets are about Oregon, and his years at the university are memorialized by a faculty research award named in his honor. He received …

    Oregon Encyclopedia

  • Florence Merriam Bailey (1863-1948)

    Florence Augusta Merriam Bailey was an ornithologist and nature writer whose fieldwork contributed significantly to the knowledge of the birds of Oregon. Best known for Handbook of Birds of the Western United States and Birds of New Mexico, she was called the First Lady of American ornithology. She was …

    Oregon Encyclopedia

  • Vernon Bailey (1864-1942)

    Vernon Bailey, chief field naturalist for the U.S. Bureau of Biological Survey from 1890 to 1933, is best known in Oregon as the author of Mammals and Life Zones of Oregon (1936), a remarkably interesting and informative study of the state’s wildlife and ecological regions. Born on June 21, 1864, …

    Oregon Encyclopedia