Writing for Youth: Building Pathways to a More Sustainable and Inclusive Future with Jewell Parker Rhodes

Please register here for this free event.

Everyone is invited to attend this live Zoom event with Jewell Parker Rhodes, as she presents her talk "Writing for Youth: Building Pathways to a More Sustainable and Inclusive Future."

Reflecting on her award-winning novels (Ninth Ward, Bayou Magic) and most recent book, Paradise on Fire, Rhodes examines the impact of environmental disasters through fiction and the consequences of inequitable access to nature. Through an exploration of the intersection of two of the most pressing issues of our generation, Rhodes “does heroic work in connecting global forces to local reality” (The New York Times) as it relates to her recent book’s heroine who spends the summer at a rural California ranch with a group of other teenagers from the urban East Coast for a Wilderness Adventures program. Inspired by one of the largest wildfires in California history, Rhodes’ Paradise on Fire masterfully blends real-world issues with relatable fiction to help facilitate discourse about important topics.

This talk is part of Spring Creek Project's "Lookout: Envisioning Futures with Wildfire," an 11-week series exploring how we are shaping this era of megafires and how it is shaping us. Speakers from across the arts, humanities, and environmental sciences will help us scan the horizon for the ideas and stories that can guide us through this critical and disorienting time.

SCHEDULE
Talks in the series will be broadcast live on Zoom Tuesdays at 6 p.m. PST / 8 p.m. CST / 9 p.m. EST from January 4 to March 15. Learn more and register for other talks here: https://bit.ly/3lHTlex

This series is hosted by the Spring Creek Project and the Environmental Arts and Humanities Initiative at Oregon State University and co-sponsored by OSU's Center for the Humanities and Sustainability Office. Rhodes' lecture is also co-sponsored by Corvallis-Benton County Public Library, Grass Roots Books & Music, and OSU's School of Writing, Literature, and Film.