Robert is a magazine writer and field botanist from the Missouri Ozarks. After being fired from a hometown job waiting tables, he decided to become a long-haul trucker, a confused tangent that became a feature story for Esquire. Throughout his 20s, he oscillated between stints in freelance writing – publishing stories with National Geographic, The Nation, and New York Times Opinion – and conservation work, which has included field botany in the Northern Rockies and the Ozarks.