Dr. Mary Rose O'Reilley to speak at Land Stewardship Project event June 29
Dr. Mary Rose O'Reilley, UST professor emerita of English, will be one of three featured speakers at "Keeping the Land and People Together," an evening of readings and discussion celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Land Stewardship Project at 7 p.m. Friday, June 29, at the College of St. Catherine.
The Land Stewardship Project, launched in 1982, fosters an ethic of stewardship for farmland, promotes sustainable agriculture and develops sustainable communities.
Wendell Berry, an essayist, novelist and poet who farms in Henry County, Ky., and Joe Paddock, a poet, oral historian and environmental writer, also will give presentations.
Seating is limited. Tickets are $25 and must be purchased in advance. To order your tickets, call (651) 653-0618 or e-mail the Land Stewardship Project.
More about the speakers:
- O'Reilley is the author of The Love of Impermanent Things: A Threshold Economy and The Barn at the End of the World: The Apprenticeship of a Quaker, Buddhist Shepherd, among other books. She has received numerous honors for her work, including the Walt Whitman Award for her first book of poems, Half Wild. She also has been a finalist for the Minnesota Book Awards.
- Berry's "eloquent essays on honoring and working the land have been a vital force in the modern agrarian movement," wrote New York Times reviewer Roy Hoffman in January. His landmark critique of industrial agriculture, The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture, is still as relevant and powerful today as when it was first published three decades ago. Berry is a regular contributor to Orion magazine. His latest book, Andy Catlett: Early Travels: A Novel, was published in 2006.
- Paddock lives with his wife, Nancy, also a writer and poet, in Litchfield, Minn. He is the author of an acclaimed biography, Keeper of the Wild: The Life of Ernest Oberholtzer. He also is co-author with Nancy Paddock and Carol Bly of "Soil and Survival," an LSP publication. His latest book of poems, A Sort of Honey, was published earlier this year. Paddock has been a finalist for the Minnesota Book Awards.
LSP's membership base of farmers and nonfarmers also is working to advance social justice for people who produce food and care for the land. For more information, visit the Land Stewardship Project Web site.
