Diane Lang
An effervescent speaker and impassioned naturalist, Diane Lang began working as a docent at the Lindsay Wildlife Museum in Walnut Creek, California in 2001. Over the next decade, she presented public programs about the various wild animals that reside at the museum, led class tours, visited schools, and worked directly with the museum’s non-releasable hawks, owls, falcons, and yes, vultures. Before long Diane was also docenting at Sulphur Creek Nature Center in Hayward and at Eaton Canyon Nature Center back in her hometown of Pasadena where she helped to create innovative nature-focused curricula for student groups.
She’d already served as a reader in the public schools via the Pleasanton Public Library and had read countless books to her son Peter. And before that, she’d honed her writing skills in the publications department at the California Institute of Technology. She holds a B.A. from Cal State Los Angeles.
Diane has written verses for fun all her life, but she started spending more time at it just a few years ago, when she wondered if putting some of the animal information into rhyme would help children remember it. During some programs, she would say to the children that even though we don’t send birthday cards or valentines to spiders and insects, we probably should, because they are some of our best friends! As she wondered what such valentines might sound like, she started having fun with the idea, and Vulture Verses: Love Poems for the Unloved was born.
After sharing her fascination with the natural world and its more exotic animals with children at these three nature centers, Diane goes home to her husband, the acclaimed origami artist and physicist Robert Lang, and her menagerie (which includes the tarantula she travels with), and writes poems about her favorite critters.
She’d already served as a reader in the public schools via the Pleasanton Public Library and had read countless books to her son Peter. And before that, she’d honed her writing skills in the publications department at the California Institute of Technology. She holds a B.A. from Cal State Los Angeles.
Diane has written verses for fun all her life, but she started spending more time at it just a few years ago, when she wondered if putting some of the animal information into rhyme would help children remember it. During some programs, she would say to the children that even though we don’t send birthday cards or valentines to spiders and insects, we probably should, because they are some of our best friends! As she wondered what such valentines might sound like, she started having fun with the idea, and Vulture Verses: Love Poems for the Unloved was born.
After sharing her fascination with the natural world and its more exotic animals with children at these three nature centers, Diane goes home to her husband, the acclaimed origami artist and physicist Robert Lang, and her menagerie (which includes the tarantula she travels with), and writes poems about her favorite critters.
