About

“When people say, Did you always want to be a writer?, I have to say no! I always was a writer.”

– Ursula K. Le Guin

Welcome to Wild Type! I’m J.K. Ullrich (she/her). Analyst by day and novelist by night, I explore how today’s science will impact tomorrow’s societies. As the daughter of an English major and a healthcare worker, I grew up between the library and the laboratory, relentlessly curious about the universe. After earning a creative writing degree, my career traversed myriad scientific disciplines, from editing medical reports to freelance reporting for NASA to forecasting emerging technologies. The diverse expertise I developed now helps me prepare industry leaders for disruptive change. However complex the concepts, I can transform them into compelling narratives.

Sometimes these narratives lead into speculative realms. Harnessing my scientific storytelling for advocacy, I also bring modeled futures to life through fiction. A pioneer in the climate fiction genre, my seminal article on its impact featured in The Atlantic. My 2015 debut novel Blue Karma, a prescient thriller about the water crisis in the American West, won a LibraryJournal award for Best Science Fiction. More books and short stories followed, along with this blog. Here, my journalism roots blossomed into nature writing and photography. Through this trinity of tools—fact, fiction, and photography—I hope to share both my wonder at Planet Earth, and my determination to ensure its story has a happy ending.

Learn more about me and my work in the interview posts below. You can also follow my adventures in real-time on Mastodon @WildTypeWriter@universeodon.com. For freelance inquiries, please email me via my Contact page.

Interviews