Arts and Entertainment

Nature writer Mike Branch to offer reading

Nature writer and ecocritic Mike Branch will read from his essay series “Rants from the Hill," at 12:15 p.m. Tuesday, March 18, in the Edith Davis Eve Chapel.

Branch’s "Rants from the Hill" is an acclaimed monthly essay series published in High Country News online. A prominent literary ecocritic and nature writer, Branch is co-founder and past president of the Association for the Study of Literature and Environment (ASLE). He has published five books, including the Pulitzer Prize-nominated "John Muir’s Last Journey: South to the Amazon and East to Africa" (Island Press, 2001). His other books are "The Height of Our Mountains: Nature Writing from Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains and Shenandoah Valley" (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998); "Reading the Earth: New Directions in the Study of Literature and Environment" (University of Idaho Press, 1998); "The ISLE Reader: Ecocriticism, 1993-2003" (University of Georgia Press; co-edited with Scott Slovic); and "Reading the Roots: American Nature Writing before Walden" (University of Georgia Press, 2004).

Branch served as book review editor of the journal ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment for 16 years. He is a co-founder and series co-editor of the University of Virginia Press book series "Under the Sign of Nature: Explorations in Ecocriticism." He teaches in the graduate program in literature and environment at the University of Nevada, Reno, a program which he co-founded. He has received numerous awards as a distinguished teacher and professor. His environmental community service initiatives include the Tahoe Forest Stewardship Days program, which he co-founded in 1998.

Branch's talk is sponsored by the Penn State Altoona Environmental Studies program. It is free and open to the public.

Last Updated January 9, 2015