If the unrelenting bad news about the environment has got you down, mark your calendars for a talk on Thursday, June 13 in Nelson by Alanna Mitchell, author of the bestselling Sea Sick: The Hidden Crisis of Global Ocean Change. Mitchell will speak on moving from environmental despair to imagining a new world.
Mitchell contends that although awareness of the environmental crisis is vital, society cannot achieve a better world unless we can imagine what that world would look like. The author, winner of the prestigious $100,000 Atkinson Fellowship in Journalism in 2008 and the $75,000 Grantham Prize for environmental writing in 2010, is a former Globe and Mail reporter who now directs her attention to investigating changes in Earth’s life-support systems.
She will talk at the Nelson United Church, 602 Silica Street, at 7 p.m. An opportunity to meet the author and book signing will follow. A donation of $10 is suggested, with youth and students free.
And for local writers interested in more interaction with Mitchell, or in improving their writing generally, she will be the feature presenter and mentor at the second annual Convergence Writers’ Weekend at the Heart’s Rest Retreat Centre in New Denver, June 14 to 16.
The Convergence Writers Weekend is limited to 25 participants, although spaces are still available. The Weekend will offer talks, writing workshops convened by area published authors, and one-on-one consultations with Mitchell. Further details, including how to register, are available online at heartsrest.com. Cost of the weekend, including meals, is $350.
The Convergence Writers’ Weekend is sponsored by the United Church of Canada, the Columbia Basin Trust, the Heart's Rest Retreat Centre and Community Initiatives grants from Slocan, Silverton and New Denver.