Acclaimed nature writer Kathleen Dean Moore will present a reading on Wednesday, April 6, at 7:30 p.m. in the Austin Reading Room of the Jereld R. Nicholson Library at Linfield College.
Moore, distinguished professor of philosophy at Oregon State University, will read from work, largely set in the coastal hills, goose swamps, mossy rainforests and tidal flats of the Pacific Northwest. She will discuss the anguish of a nature writer trying to find her way in a time of extinctions. Her love for and close observation of nature combine with a keenly philosophical mind; Moore’s work questions the power of celebration, point of elegy, and asks if it is possible to open readers’ hearts without breaking them. Her work has been praised by the Chicago Examiner, Utne Reader, Orion Magazine and E Magazine.
Moore is best known for award-winning books of essays about wet, wild places – “Riverwalking,” “Holdfast,” “Pine Island Paradox” and “Wild Comfort.” A naturalist and moral philosopher, her love for the reeling world has led her to a new life of climate writing and activism. Her most recent book, “Great Tide Rising: Toward Clarity and Moral Courage in a Time of Planetary Change,” follows her pivotal anthology “Moral Ground: Ethical Action for a Planet in Peril.” Moore’s nature writing returns to the wild-weather coast in her novel, “The Piano Tide,” to be published in the fall. She writes from Corvallis and from a small cabin where two creeks and a bear trail meet a tidal cove in Alaska.
This reading, part of the “Readings at the Nick” series, is free and open to the public. It is sponsored by the Linfield Nicholson Library and the Linfield English Department. For more information, contact Susan Barnes Whyte at 503-883-2517 or swhyte@linfield.edu.
