About Deanna Duke
I write stories — both true and imagined — that explore connection: to nature, to community, and to the networks that sustain us. Whether I’m delving into the hidden communication of forests or unraveling a small-town mystery, my work invites readers to slow down, notice the details, and rediscover what it means to belong.
My Nonfiction Work
As an award-winning nonfiction author (IPPY Award, Health/Medicine category), soon to be Certified Forest Therapy Guide, and researcher in environmental wellness, I explore how forest ecology, neuroscience, and anthropology can help us heal from the mental and emotional costs of our tech-saturated lives.
My upcoming book, Wired Roots: What Forests Can Teach Us About Healing in a Digital Age, blends science and story to reveal how the cooperative networks of trees and fungi can inspire healthier human networks. My work has been featured in The New York Times, The Economist, Scientific American, and other publications. I hold degrees in Computer Science and Anthropology, a combination that lets me bridge both the systems we build and the ones nature perfected long before us.
[Read more about Wired Roots →]
My Fiction Work
In addition to nonfiction, I’m the author of the Rusty Quail Bakery Cozy Mystery series, starting with Murder in Runje Park. These stories follow Cassandra “Cassie” Anderson, a former tech executive turned bakery owner in Roslyn, Washington, whose small-town life is anything but quiet — especially with her black pug, Dingus Khan, by her side.
My mysteries mix small-town charm, culinary delights, light suspense, and a dash of humor — perfect for readers who enjoy curling up with a good puzzle in a warm, inviting world. While my nonfiction draws on forest science, my fiction draws on the rhythms and relationships of community — another kind of living network.
More about Deanna...
🔹 Author of Wired Roots: What Forests Can Teach Us About Healing in a Digital Age (2026)
🔹 Author of Murder In Runje Park: ARusty Quail Bakery Cozy Mystery - Book 1 (2025)
🔹 Author of The Non-Toxic Avenger: What You Don’t Know Can Hurt You , New Society Publishers (2011)
🔹 Long-time blogger at "The Crunchy Chicken"
🔹 Lover of seasonally inspired pastry, dogs, and forensic disasters
🔹 Based in Roslyn, WA (the setting for "Murder in Runje Park")
I believe stories can be as nourishing as a walk in the woods. Whether I’m tracing the slow conversation of trees through a mycelial web or following my bakery-owning sleuth through the streets of a small town, my work is about connection — the kind that grounds us, restores us, and makes us feel at home in the world.
Murder in Runje Park
In Murder in Runje Park, pastry chef Cassie Anderson stumbles upon a dead body in the town park. It kick‑starts an amateur investigation into the Greenfield family secrets, a mysterious chamberstick, and the ghost of the victim's past decades.
Set against fall festivals, a horror movie night, bakery gossip, and a historic windswept cemetery, the story blends cozy culinary comfort with suspense, and small‑town warmth with unsettling secrets.
Wired Roots: What Forests Can Teach Us About Healing in a Digital Age
In a world addicted to the speed of digital networks, forests have been running a slower, wiser internet for over 400 million years. Wired Roots blends forest ecology, neuroscience, and anthropology to show how the cooperative networks of trees and fungi can guide us out of the anxiety, depression, and disconnection fueled by our hyperconnected lives.
This is The Nature Fix meets Digital Minimalism — a science-driven yet deeply human narrative that reveals how forests can heal our tech-battered minds. By drawing parallels between the mycelial networks beneath our feet and the artificial networks in our hands, I invite readers to reimagine connection — with the natural world, and with themselves.
More About Me
Real‑life homesteading taught me patience, community, and the art of noticing small details. My background in environmental nonfiction gives me a keen eye for place and detail, which I channel into every scene and chapter—from Basque cheesecakes to neural networks.
When I'm not writing, you'll find me walking among moss-covered giants in the Pacific Northwest, baking loads of bread in my small-town cottage bakery or biking on the many trails that surround the community where I live.
Let's stay connected — the slow, nourishing kind of connection. You can find me on Instagram at @deannadukeauthor, sign up for my newsletter, or explore more of my work here on the site.