Biographical Information

Gretchen Legler is a professor in the Bachelor of Fine Arts Program in Creative Writing at the University of Maine at Farmington.  She has written and published widely as a nonfiction writer, as well as a freelance newspaper reporter and magazine writer. Her second book of essays, On the Ice: An Intimate Portrait of Life at McMurdo Station Antarctica, was published by Milkweed Editions in 2005.  Her first nonfiction work, All The Powerful Invisible Things: A Sportswoman's Notebook, was published by Seal Press in 1995. Her essays have appeared in many anthologies, journals and magazines, including Uncommon Waters: Women Write About Fishing, American Nature Writing 1997, the Georgia Review and Orion. She is the winner of two Pushcart Prizes.

Gretchen traveled to Antarctica in 1997-1998 as part of the United States National Science Foundation Office of Polar Programs Artists and Writers Program. She explored such places as McMurdo Station and environs, the South Pole, the Dry Valleys, remote field camps and more. The Artists and Writers Program allows artists and writers of all kinds (photographers, painters, musicians, writers of children's literature, science writers and more) to explore and express their vision of this remarkable continent.

Her web page was designed to provide information about Antarctica and updates for family and friends while she was traveling, as well as provide educational opportunities for elementary and secondary school students who were studying the Antarctic. Post-trip, the website still offers a source of imaginatively presented information about the Great White South.

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