Author Event: Jaclyn Moyer's On Gold Hill: A Personal History of Wheat, Farming, and Family from Punjab to California.

Local writers Jaclyn Moyer and Sindya Bhanoo will lead a conversation in celebration of Moyer’s new book “On Gold Hill: A Personal History of Wheat, Farming, and Family from Punjab to California.”

In 2012, 25-year-old Jackie Moyer — the daughter of a forbidden marriage between a white American father and a Punjabi American mother — embarked on a career in organic farming, setting up shop on 10 rented acres in Gold Hill, California. When a friend encouraged her to add an heirloom wheat called Sonora to her crop rotation — a strain whose roots can be traced back to Punjab — Moyer saw an opportunity to repair her fractured relationship to her Indian heritage.

Braiding memoir with historical inquiry, Moyer maps her personal story atop the entangled histories of wheat cultivation and the rise of the organic farming movement to examine how industrial agriculture has harmed our relationship with food, the planet and each other. “On Gold Hill” explores the complexities of multiracial identity and the immigrant experience, illuminates the urgent need for a more just food system, and investigates what it means to lose — and to reclaim — one’s heritage. 

Jaclyn Moyer’s essays and journalism have appeared in The Atlantic, High Country News, Orion, Guernica, Ninth Letter and elsewhere. Originally from northern California’s Sierra Foothills, she currently lives in Corvallis, Oregon, with her partner and two young children.

Sindya Bhanoo is the author of the story collection “Seeking Fortune Elsewhere.” She is the 2023 winner of the Oregon Book Award for fiction, the New American Voices Award, and an O. Henry Prize. She lives in Corvallis, Oregon, and teaches creative writing at Oregon State University.

This event is co-sponsored by the Spring Creek Project, the Corvallis-Benton County Public Library, and Grass Roots Books. Book signing to follow event.