Jeff Biggers

Jeff Biggers (born in 1963) is an American historian, journalist, playwright, and monologist. He is the author and editor of eight books.
"A prominent author and activist writing extensively about environmental and climate issues," according to Yale Climate Connection, Biggers performs and lectures frequently at festivals, theatres, conferences, universities and schools across the United States. As the founder of the Climate Narrative Project, he served as the Writer-in-Residence in the Office of Sustainability at the University of Iowa, from 2014-2017, and as the Campbell-Stripling Distinguished Writer-in-Residence at Wesleyan College in Georgia. As part of his climate narrative work, Biggers is the author and performer of the "Ecopolis Monologues," in which he envision ways for regenerative city initiatives. Adapted to local initiatives and history, the Ecopolis monologues had been performed at conferences, universities and theatre venues throughout America.
In 2008, Biggers wrote a series of articles calling for a Green New Deal. As the grandson of a coal miner from southern Illinois, Jeff Biggers has been a vocal critic of mountaintop removal in Appalachia and strip mining across the nation, poorly enforced black lung and mining workplace safety laws, and the fallacy of "clean coal" slogans. "Reckoning at Eagle Creek" examines the loss of his family's 200-year-old homestead to strip mining, and the historical parallel impact of coal mining on communities and their environment. Biggers' dispatches and reports from coal mining regions around the world have been collected at the Reckoning in Appalachia website.
In 2012, Publishers Weekly selected his book, ""State Out of the Union: Arizona and the Final Showdown Over the American Dream"," as a Top Ten Title in Social Science, "State Out of the Union" was described by Kirkus Reviews as "masterful at showing how the past is prologue… A timely book, especially with immigration policy playing a major role in the upcoming presidential campaign.”
His 2018 book, "Trials of a Scold: The Incredible True Story of Writer Anne Royall" was longlisted for the PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography (2018), and chronicles the life and times of pioneering writer and muckraker Anne Royall. Social critic Jeff Chang called his most recent book, "Resistance: Reclaiming an American Tradition", "powerful, urgent essays."
His published play, "Damnatio Memoriae: A Play, Una Commedia,'" (2015) was described by author Rilla Askew as "a timeless examination of human rights, human dignity, and what it means to be a "citizen," the play reveals forgotten stories while bringing to life the dilemmas of our modern world, reminding us that, in so many ways, they are one and the same." In Italy, Biggers founded the Mare Nostrum Theatre Project.
Writing career.
Non-fiction books.
"Resistance: Reclaiming an American Tradition" is a "widely ranging history of intellectual and moral resistance within American politics," according to Kirkus Reviews. It includes portraits of Native American and early American figures, and the American legacy of resistanec to duplicitious authority for civil rights, women's rights, immigrant rights, environmental protection, free speech. In an interview with PEN American, Biggers said, "In dealing with the most challenging issues of every generation, resistance to duplicitous civil authority and its corporate enablers has defined our quintessential American story."
"Reckoning at Eagle Creek: The Secret Legacy of Coal in the Heartland" is a family saga, part memoir, cultural history and journalistic investigation, examining the impact of coal mining on Biggers' native region of southern Illinois. It won the Sierra Club's David Brower Award. Looking back to the removal of Native Americans, the book laces the history of Biggers' own family, including the destruction of their 200-year-old historic community in the Shawnee forests into the development of the coal industry, African slavery and coal mining, the history of workplace safety and labor union struggles, and environmental and heritage movements against strip-mining and coal-fired plants. Publishers Weekly called it "part historical narrative, part family memoir, part pastoral paean, and part jeremiad against the abuse of the land and of the men who gave and continue to give their lives to (and often for) the mines, [Reckoning at Eagle Creek] puts a human face on the industry that supplies nearly half of America’s energy…it offers a rare historical perspective on the vital yet little considered industry, along with a devastating critique of the myth of ‘clean coal.’ ”
In reviewing "State Out of the Union," Progressive Magazine said: “the title of Jeff Biggers’s sweeping chronicle of Arizona, State Out of the Union, fittingly evokes Lincoln’s ominous words at the outset of the Civil War… Biggers’s lesson for his readers is that throughout its century of turmoil, Arizona’s cycles of conflict move in a progressive trajectory. While many political movements have put down roots in the state, the paths their struggles collectively blaze for the country ultimately point toward emancipation.” Another critic said, "for Jeff Biggers what the immigration policy of this country should be is as clear as unpolluted, smog-free air, and crystal clean, unchemicalized water. Biggers, an author, journalist, storyteller and playwright is not typical, however. His knowledge and writings about vital trending issues ... run far and wide. He is a discerning advocate. He has followed and joined the immigration movement in Arizona before and after the fashioning of SB1070."
"The United States of Appalachia" argues that beyond its mythology in the American imagination, Appalachia has long been a vanguard region in the United States-—a cradle of U.S. freedom and independence, and a hot bed for literature and music. Some of the most quintessential and daring American innovations, rebellions, and social movements have emerged from an area often stereotyped as a quaint backwater, he says, and in the process, immigrants from the Appalachian diaspora have become some of America's most famous leaders. The Asheville Citizen-Times reviewed it as a "masterpiece of popular history...revelations abound." One reviewer said the book is "full of historical insights...debunking stereotypes is one of the driving motivations behind Biggers' writing."
"In the Sierra Madre" is a memoir and narrative nonfiction history that chronicles the life and times in one of the most famous, yet unknown, regions in the world. Based on his one-year sojourn among the native Rarámuri/Tarahumara of Mexico, Biggers examines the ways of a resilient indigenous culture in the Americas, the exploits of the Mexican mountaineers, and the parade of argonauts and accidental travelers that has journeyed into the Sierra Madre over centuries. From African explorers, Bohemian friars, Confederate and Irish war deserters, French poets, Boer and Russian commandos, hidden Apache and Mennonite communities, bewildered archaeologists, addled writers, and legendary characters like Antonin Artaud, B. Traven, Sergei Eisenstein, George Patton, Geronimo and Pancho Villa, Biggers searches for the legendary treasures of the Sierra Madre (Mexico's Copper Canyon). "In the Sierra Madre" won the Gold Medal in Foreword Magazine's Book of the Year Awards (Travel Essays) in 2006. The memoir was called by Booklist "an astonishing sojourn" in 2006.
Stage plays.
Biggers is also a playwright, whose first play, "4½ Hours: Across the Stones of Fire," explores the fate of a family threatened by an impending strip mining operation in their community. The play toured nationally and appeared on Off Broadway at the Gene Frankel Theatre in New York City on June 4–13, 2010. He has turned many of his books, including "In the Sierra Madre" and "State Out of the Union", into monologue performances. In Italy, Biggers cofounded the Mare Nostrum Theatre Project and has worked with Teatroaperto and other theatre groups in Italy, on "Damnatio Memoriae," a new play on contemporary immigration and Ancient Rome. Biggers has appeared on campuses and in cities across the country, performing adaptations of his "Ecopolis" monologues.
Awards and honors.
Biggers has won numerous awards and honors, including an American Book Award, the David Brower Award for Environmental Reporting, Foreword Magazine Book of the Year Award, Lowell Thomas Award for Travel Journalism, Delta Award for Literature, Plattner Award for Appalachian Literature, an Illinois Arts Council Creative Non-Fiction Award, the Garst Memorial Award for Media (UN Association Iowa), and a Field Foundation Fellowship. He is a contributing editor to The Bloomsbury Review, and is a member of the PEN American Center. His play, "4 1/2 Hours: Across the Stones of Fire," won the "Greener Planet Award" at the Planet Connections Theatre Festivity in New York City, and has appeared at theatres around the country. Blue Ridge Outdoors Magazine selected Biggers as one of its 100 Pioneers.