Campus News

‘Tarball Chronicles’ author to visit UGA

Author and environmental critic David Gessner will visit UGA for two events: a reading and book signing Oct. 11 at 4 p.m. at the Odum School of Ecology Auditorium and an informal coffee hour talk Oct. 12 at 11 a.m. in the Park Hall library.

Gessner, author of The Tarball Chronicles: A Writer Responds to the Gulf Oil Catastrophe, is an associate professor of creative writing at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, where he founded the national literary journal Ecotone. He previously taught environmental writing at Harvard. On Oct. 11, Gessner will discuss his on-the-scene account of the environmental and human impacts of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. During the Oct. 12 session, Gessner will talk about his research and writing that led to The Tarball Chronicles. The book grew from an environmental report into a series of blog posts and finally a book that is part investigative journalism and part nature essay.

The events are cosponsored by the Environmental Ethics Certificate Program, the Odum School of Ecology, The Georgia Review and Georgia Sea Grant. Both events are free and open to the public.