Stirring The Mud And The Mind: Author Explores Landscapes And Human Imagination February 5th And 6th

Chestertown, MD, January 10, 2003 — Washington College's Center for the Environment and Societyannounces the next event in the popular Journeys Home Lecture Series. Author Barbara Hurd, Ph.D., will speak Wednesday, February 5, 2003, starting at 7:30 p.m. in Easton's historic Avalon Theatre on “Praising the Mess: Landscape and Imagination.” She will also read selections of prose and poetry centering on the theme of her latest book, Stirring the Mud: On Swamps, Bogs, and Human Imagination, at a lunch, talk and book-signing Thursday, February 6, 2003, at 12:30 p.m. in Washington College's O'Neill Literary House. Tickets are required for the Avalon Theatre lecture.

In addition to Stirring the Mud, Dr. Hurd is the author of a volume of poetry, Objects in this Mirror, and a book on caves, forthcoming from Houghton Mifflin. Stirring the Mud was inspired by Maryland's own swamps and wetlands, and is both a physical and mental journey through these vital environments often pushed to the margin of human attention or inexorably altered for our use.

Dr. Hurd's essays and poems have appeared in numerous journals including Best American Essays, The Yale Review, The Georgia Review, Orion, Nimrod, Prairie Schooner, Audubon and others. She is the recipient of a 2002 NEA Fellowship in Creative Nonfiction, four Maryland Individual Artist Awards for Poetry, winner of the Sierra Club's National Nature Writing Award, and a finalist for the Annie Dillard Award for Creative Nonfiction and the PEN/Jerard Award. Dr. Hurd teaches creative writing at Frostburg State University in Frostburg, MD, where she also co-edits the journal Nightsun.

Journeys Home is a collaboration between the Center for the Environment and Society, Adkins Arboretum, Eastern Shore Land Conservancy, and Maryland Center for Agro-Ecology, Inc. Tickets to the Avalon lecture may be purchased at the door or by contacting the Adkins Arboretum at 410-634-2847. The Washington College event is free and open to the public, but seating is limited. Please call 410-810-7151 by January 27 to reserve a place.

To learn more about educational events and program sponsored by the Washington College Center for the Environment and Society, visit the center online at http://ces.washcoll.edu or call 410-810-7151.