Zoë Lescaze is a writer covering intersections of science and culture. Her articles and criticism have appeared in The New York Times, The New York Times Book Review, and T Magazine, among other publications.
With her friend Alice Hines, she is the host and creator Mind Games: a new podcast produced by Kaleidoscope and iHeart. Listen here.
Her book, Paleoart: Visions of the Prehistoric Past, explores the wild ways artists and scientists have reconstructed the primordial world. Published in five languages, it’s among the most comprehensive books on paleoart to date. You can read reviews in the New York Times Book Review, Wall Street Journal, and London Review of Books, among other outlets. A new edition was released in 2025.
As a journalist, Zoë has covered meteorites, climate change, invasive species, polar exploration, medieval medicine, collective intelligence, and food scarcity through the lens of art and culture. In recent profiles, she’s explored voluntary death and the fraught history of botany.
Between 2017 and 2021, Zoë was editor in chief of The Tortoise, an annual conservation magazine focused (yes) on turtles and tortoises. She co-parents two rescue reptiles: Daisy the python and Daphne the tortoise.