Author Craig Childs will visit Fort Lewis College Wednesday and Thursday to discuss his book, Apocalyptic Planet: Field Guide to the Future of the Earth, this year’s selection for FLC’s common reading.
Free tickets are available at Fort Lewis College Reed Library, Durango Public Library, 1900 East Third Ave., and Maria’s Bookshop, 960 Main Ave.
The 2012 Apocalyptic Planet is an exploration of notions of apocalypse and how the world will someday end.
“I’ve always thought about landscape in a sense of time. You’re seeing time exposed in front of you. You’re seeing environmental changes. You’re seeing extinctions. It’s always led me to this notion of how the world ends,” Childs said in a Jan. 30 interview with KSUT public radio.
He has an eye for apocalyptic landscapes, such as the Atacama Desert in South America, the driest non-Polar desert in the world, that are almost violent, yet dramatically beautiful. However, the sense of a flourishing planet is a more prominent theme in his book.
“For a book about how the world comes to an end, it’s remarkably optimistic,” said KSUT’s Mark Duggan in response to Childs. The book strives to redefine apocalypse and show how things are driven by change – that cultures, species and climates aren’t just destroyed, but recreated and remade by change.
“I’m wanting readers to come away with a greater understanding of the world that they’re in,” said Childs, who was born in Arizona and lives off the grid in Western Colorado.
The Common Reading Experience will include several events:
Wednesday, Feb. 8Noon-1 p.m.: Craig Childs: “Real Lunch,” San Juan Dining Hall.7-9 p.m.: Craig Childs: keynote presentation and book signing, Community Concert Hall.Thursday, Feb. 99:30-11 a.m.: Craig Childs: meet the author, Reed Library.12:45-2:20 p.m.: Craig Childs: college hour colloquium lecture with a question-and-answer session and book signing, Student Union Ballroom.2:30-4 p.m., Craig Childs: discussion on writing and publishing, Room 130, Noble Hall.Tuesday, Feb. 149-9:30 a.m., Craig Childs: “Off the Rim” interview with Nancy Stoffer, KDUR Durango Community Radio, 91.9 and 93.9 FM.Wednesday, Feb. 155 p.m. and 8 p.m., film “The Age of Consequences” by Jared P. Scott, Vallecito Room in the Student Union.All events are free and open to all.
To listen to the KSUT interview with Craig Childs, “Cataclysm and Idealism,” visit www.ksut.org/post/cataclysm-and-idealism.
For more information about the Common Reading Experience, call 247-7270 or visit www.fortlewis.edu.
