About

Hello! I'm Danna Staaf; learn about my name here. My author bio below is written in third person, because that's useful for a variety of professional people. Past the bio, you'll find a couple of unprofessionally goofy comics. Something for everyone!

Danna Staaf is a science communicator and marine biologist who earned a PhD from Stanford University with her studies of baby squid. Her writing has appeared in Nautilus, Atlas Obscura, and Science, and she is the author of Monarchs of the Sea: The Extraordinary 500-Million-Year History of Cephalopods (named one of Science Friday's best science books of the year), The Lady and the Octopus: How Jeanne Villepreux-Power Invented Aquariums and Revolutionized Marine Biology (a best book of the year of the School Library Journal and the Children's Book Committee), and Nursery Earth: The Wondrous Lives of Baby Animals and the Extraordinary Ways They Shape Our World (hailed as "a gobsmacking delight!"). Her newest book is The Lives of Octopuses and their Relatives: A Natural History of Cephalopods. Staaf lives in San Jose, California, with her husband, children, cat, and innumerable plush octopuses.

 


As I'm reading on a beanbag chair, a child joins and asks me to read to him. I read an excerpt of An Immense World about parasitic flies, and he is nonplussed. I realize I've become Calvin's Dad.


The comic begins with a conversation in media res. My husband says "Maggots are yummy" which I promise to remember, and he asks me not to take it out of context. I reply, "I'm a journalist, that's what I do." (Disclaimer: This is not, in fact, good journalism.)