In his debut memoir, Dear Park Ranger, Jeff Darren Muse writes: “You will not care for what you do not know. Start now. Start knowing it.” From crawdad creeks and public wildlands to college classrooms and prison gardens, he has worked throughout the United States as an environmental educator, historical interpreter, and park ranger.

Born and raised in Indiana, Muse graduated from Mt. Vernon High School in 1987 and DePauw University in 1991. With master’s degrees in science and creative writing, he has been employed by numerous agencies, public universities, and nonprofit organizations, from McLeod Plantation Historic Site and Zion National Park, to The Evergreen State College and University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, to Hudson River Sloop Clearwater and North Cascades Institute. Be it north, south, east, or west, he embodies the Crossroads of America. 

As a writer, Muse is inspired by Brian Doyle’s dictum: “The essay is a jackdaw, a magpie, a raven. It picks up everything and uses it.” Exploring nature, culture, family life, and his own highs and lows, Muse’s essays have appeared in Ascent, The Common, High Country News, and River Teeth, among others. His book, Dear Park Ranger, interrogates his lifelong restlessness—that of a fatherless, childless Hoosier who wouldn’t and couldn’t stay put. In 2024, Nautilus Book Awards honored his memoir-in-essays with a silver medal, and Foreword Reviews deemed it a finalist for a 2023 INDIES Book of the Year Award. 

With his wife, “Ranger Paula,” Muse has returned home to central Indiana where he now battles cancer—his own. In the summer of 2023, as they both rangered in New Mexico, he experienced a cluster of confusing symptoms. An MRI revealed a brain tumor. Healthcare laid out a map. “Don’t fret,” he says. “I’m still here! Still hiking!” Along with writing about this new wilderness, Muse continues to connect people to places and people to each other—all ages, all walks of life.