Life & Work with Jonathan Hanson

Today we’d like to introduce you to Jonathan Hanson.

Hi Jonathan, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today.
I grew up on the far northeast side of Tucson, where I had easy exploration access to the Sonoran Desert and Sabino Creek—and a powerful incentive to stay out as long as possible due to a fractious relationship with my stepfather. So the natural world became my refuge and has remained so ever since.

I was a daydreamy student at best but a voracious reader, especially of books dealing with any kind of adventure, whether fiction or non-fiction. So I devoured works by Edgar Rice Burroughs and Robert Louis Stevenson along with those by F. C. Selous, Jim Corbett, Laurens van der Post, and Roy Chapman Andrews.

After barely graduating high school, I spent my twenties getting my act together and desultorily attending biology and ecology classes at the U of A, then at 29 met my perfect mate, Roseann, who spurred me into actually accomplishing worthwhile goals. We started exploring extensively in our 1973 Land Cruiser, I led sea kayak trips in the Gulf of California and embarked on a freelance writing career that eventually led to work for two dozen magazines, including Outside, National Geographic Adventure, Nature Conservancy, and others. Meanwhile, Roseann and I co-authored several books on southwestern natural history, beginning with the Southern Arizona Nature Almanac, and she authored several of her own.

In 2007 I co-founded and became the executive editor of a magazine called Overland Journal, devoted to exploration travel of all kinds, and in 2009 Roseann created the Overland Expo, which became the largest event of its kind in the world before we sold it in 2019.

Thanks to my work I’ve been lucky enough to travel on six continents, in terrain ranging from the Namib and Sahara Deserts to arctic tundra, and in 2004 I was elected as a Fellow of the Explorers Club. The little kid reading Tarzan novels would have been thrilled.

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
It’s basically been an exciting but frequently hazardous four-wheel-drive route. My biggest challenge has always been overcoming my own doubts about my own abilities. Roseann helped me with that, and the more I published the more I became comfortable with my competence at writing.

Making a living in any kind of freelance writing or artistic work is fraught these days; we prepared for it by living small—small houses, with small debts. We adopted what we call the Circle K financial plan: We never went into debt for more than two jobs as convenience-store clerks could cover. That staved off any possible disasters through economic ups and downs (so far we haven’t needed those jobs!).

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
Just as my early reading spanned both fiction and non-fiction, so does my writing. I sold my shares in Overland Journal in 2011, and returned to freelance work, mostly for magazines specializing in adventure travel. I’m also the co-author of a book called the Vehicle-dependent Expedition Guide, which is sort of the bible for overland and expedition travel. On the fiction side, I published a book of short stories titled Tales of the Southwest, and recently a novel titled Trail of the Jaguar. The latter is an action/adventure tale set mostly in the Southwest and includes a lot of factual natural history in addition to the fun shoot-em-up bits. I’m working on a sequel that will be set in the Alaskan Arctic.

Roseann and I have also done quite a bit of conservation work, both in the southwestern U.S. and the Rift Valley in Kenya, where we worked with the Maasai on community and wildlife projects.

Roseann now teaches natural history journaling and sketching, through books, online, and in person, and I help with the field workshops she runs, which teach people how to record their journeys in both words and pictures.

Is there a quality that you most attribute to your success?
I made a success of freelance writing by becoming an absolute perfectionist in what I submitted to editors. Making their job easy was the surest way to get more assignments. It always surprised me when an editor thanked me for something as simple as correct grammar and spelling—didn’t everyone do that? Then, when I became an editor, I discovered that no, not everyone does that.

Other than such practical things, my biggest advantage for the work I do is that I’ve never, ever lost my sense of wonder at the world. There’s zero chance of me ever running out of things to write about. One good way to succeed as a freelance writer is to be versatile, and I’m just as happy writing about the life history of wolverines as I am reviewing the latest Land Rover.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.exploringoverland.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jonathanhansonwriter/