About
I'm an academic at a small liberal arts college in the US Midwest. My primary focus has been mapping, cartography, and Geographic Information Systems - all the realm of the Geospatial. I've published books, articles, and online writing about map design, the history of cartography, map philosophy, participatory mapping, GIS, pedagogy, and technology. I've also published work on landscape geography, environmental geography, and sustainability. My favorite book is Making Maps, first published in 2005 and with a 4th edition published in 2024. This book is categorized as a text by the publisher (Guilford) but has long sold as many copies to individuals as are sold for classes. The book is inspired by graphic novels and the visual medium of mapping, with a creative and innovative book design (all my own work, including production). I'm also an avid book accumulator and book collector, and I have authored the online site SeriesOfSeries.com, which documents a personal collection of around 3000 books with dust jackets in over 500 different publishers’ book series from the 1890s through the 1980s.
Featured Work
Making Maps, Fourth Edition A Visual Guide to Map Design for GIS

Prized for its creative design, original art, and playful, accessible writing, Making Maps is now in a thoroughly updated fourth edition. The text is restructured to emphasize the importance of the map making process. All components of map making are covered and are brought to life in the expanded graphic novella threaded through the text. Updates include new coverage of data aggregation, artificial intelligence, feminist and Indigenous perspectives, map making workflow, and more. Design choices are emphasized and linked to the reasons for making a map.
Other Works
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The Power of Maps, 2nd Edition, With Denis Wood
2010