Ruby McConnell and Char Miller

Join us for an evening with Ruby McConnell and Char Miller discussing their latest books, Ground Truth: A Geological Survey of Life and Natural Consequences: Intimate Essays for a Planet in Peril.

Ruby McConnell is a registered geologist and outdoor adventurer. She is a recipient of numerous honors, including the Literary Arts Oregon Literary Fellowship, and she was a finalist for the Oregon Book Award for Creative Nonfiction. Ground Truth is an extended eulogy to a rapidly changing land, population and society awakening to the realities of logging, climate change, land-use and pollution. The book illuminates the central role of landscapes in our ideas of home and self despite the growing disconnect between modern lifestyle and the environment.

Char Miller is the W.M. Keck Professor of Environmental Analysis and History at Pomona College (Claremont, CA) and the author of more than fifteen books. In over forty site-specific essays, Natural Consequences provides critical historical context to current ecological challenges such as fire, drought, development, and fracking. These essays explain how we got here and suggest what we can do to thrive in the future.

Ruby McConnell

Ruby McConnell is a writer, geologist, and environmental activist whose award-winning work has been featured in Ms. Magazine, the Wall Street Journal, Huffington Post, and Mother Earth News. She is author of the critically-acclaimed outdoor series A Woman’s Guide to the Wild and A Girl’s Guide to the Wild, and Ground Truth: A Geologic Survey of a Life, which was a finalist for the 2020 Oregon Book Awards. Look for her new book, Wilderness and the American Spirit: Mapping the Route to Post-Millennial Environmentalism fall, 2023. You can almost always find her in the woods.

Char Miller

Char Miller is the W.M. Keck Professor of Environmental Analysis and History at Pomona College. His teaching and research reflect his fascination with all things environmental. Classes on U.S. environmental history, water in the U.S. West, and public lands management, like those on urbanization, have deeply informed his writing—and his community engagements. Some of these are reflected in his recent books, including Natural Consequences: Intimate Essays for a Planet in Peril (2022) and the award-winning West Side Rising: How San Antonio’s 1921 Flood Devastated a City and Sparked a Latino Environmental Justice Movement (2021). He is also author of Hetch Hetchy: A History in Documents (2020), Not So Golden State: Sustainabilityvs. the California Dream (2016), and editor of The Nature of Hope:Grassroots organizing, Environmental Justice, and Political Change (2019).