Iris Brooks is a cultural writer and photographer who has traveled to, written about, and played music on all seven continents. Her experiential writing and images capture her adventures: serenading penguins with the pennywhistle in Antarctica, attending a royal wedding in Bali, paddling a canoe down the Zambezi River on a sound safari in Zimbabwe, luxuriating at Ian Fleming’s villa Goldeneye in Jamaica, and harvesting healing herbs in Tuscany, Italy.
Hundreds of her arts and travel articles and photos have been published in a variety of magazines on topics such as Australian Spas (Travel & Leisure), Art in Asian Hotels (Robb Report), World Expo in Japan (New York Post), Food Museums Around the World (Saveur), Gardens of Montreal (Odyssey), Architecture in Portugal (The Hook), and Zanzibar Spice Tours (Islands).
She has interviewed luminaries in many fields including Academy-award winning director Julie Taymor, Grammy-award winner Wynton Marsalis, musical icon Ravi Shankar, and spiritual world leader, the Dalai Lama. Brooks has been the editor-in-chief of EAR Magazine, the public relations editor of the New York Philharmonic, and the program editor of the Lincoln Center Festival.
Together with Jon H. Davis, her stories currently appear in video as well as print. Brooks and Davis create captivating digital documentaries exploring culture and travel in well-known and remote locations ranging from colorful deserts to tropical rainforests, and idyllic, island landscapes around the globe. Their documentary, Languages Lost and Found (distributed by Filmakers Library/Alexander Street Press) was screened at the United Nations in New York and throughout North America.