John Linstrom

Director, Liberty Hyde Bailey Center Project
(607) 272-2292 ext. 147
jl4974@cornell.edu
Environment

John Linstrom is a poet, editor, and Director of the Liberty Hyde Bailey Center Project for Cornell Cooperative Extension Tompkins County. The Bailey Center Project seeks to save, restore, and open up the home and garden/greenhouse complex of Liberty Hyde Bailey in Ithaca as a public center. The Bailey Center will seek to combat the interlinked challenges of climate change, civic unraveling, and political polarization, through action-oriented dialogues across many lines of difference, educational programming, and creative projects across the sciences, arts, and humanities. You can learn more about it here.

Prior to joining CCE Tompkins County in the fall of 2026, John spent two years as an Assistant Professor of English at Centenary College of Louisiana, two years as a Postdoctoral Fellow in Climate Humanities and Social Justice at the Climate Museum in New York City, and one year as a Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow in the English Department at New York University. Once upon a time, he was the Director of the Liberty Hyde Bailey Museum at Bailey's childhood home in John's own hometown of South Haven, Michigan.

John is the series editor of The Liberty Hyde Bailey Library for Cornell University Press, and his editions of Bailey's writings include The Nature-Study Idea and Related Writings (Cornell UP, 2024), The Liberty Hyde Bailey Gardener's Companion (Cornell UP, 2019), and the centennial edition of The Holy Earth (Counterpoint, 2015). He is also the author of the poetry collection To Leave for Our Own Country (Black Lawrence, 2024).

John holds a Ph.D. in English and American Literature from New York University (2021), an M.F.A. in Creative Writing and Environment from Iowa State University (2013), and a B.A. in English and Humanities from Valparaiso University (2010). Today he lives with his wife and two daughters in Ithaca.