Join Robin Wall Kimmerer, acclaimed author of Braiding Sweetgrass with Dr. Jennifer Grenz, as they discuss her new book, The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World.
The evening will begin with a Traditional Welcome offered by Chepximiya Siyam’ Chief Janice George of the Skwxwú7mesh Úxwumixw (Squamish Nation).
Event Details
- Doors open at 6:30 p.m.
- Registration is required and seating is general admission.
- Books will be available for purchase and signing at the event.
- Books may be purchased in advance from Massy Books; enter “bring to WVML event” in the “instructions” field.
Robin Wall Kimmerer is a mother, scientist, decorated professor, and enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. She is the author of Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants, which has earned wide acclaim. Her first book, Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses, was awarded the John Burroughs Medal for outstanding nature writing, and her other work has appeared in Orion, Whole Terrain, and numerous scientific journals. In 2022, Braiding Sweetgrass was adapted for young adults by Monique Gray Smith. This new edition reinforces how wider ecological understanding stems from listening to the earth’s oldest teachers: the plants around us. Robin’s newest book, The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World, is a bold and inspiring vision for how to orient our lives around gratitude, reciprocity, and community, based on the lessons of the natural world.
Robin tours widely and has been featured on NPR’s On Being with Krista Tippett and in 2015 addressed the general assembly of the United Nations on the topic of “Healing Our Relationship with Nature.” Kimmerer is a SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor of Environmental Biology, and the founder and director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment, whose mission is to create programs which draw on the wisdom of both indigenous and scientific knowledge for our shared goals of sustainability. In 2022, she was named a MacArthur Fellow. President Joe Biden recently awarded her the 2023 National Humanities Medal.
As a writer and a scientist, her interests in restoration include not only restoration of ecological communities, but also restoration of our relationships to land. She holds a B.S. in Botany from SUNY ESF, an MS and PhD in Botany from the University of Wisconsin and is the author of numerous scientific papers on plant ecology, bryophyte ecology, traditional knowledge and restoration ecology. As a writer and a scientist, her interests in restoration include not only restoration of ecological communities, but restoration of our relationships to land. She lives on an old farm in upstate New York, tending gardens both cultivated and wild.
Dr. Jennifer Grenz is an Assistant Professor and Indigenous Scholar (Nlaka’pamux, mixed ancestry) in the Department of Forest Resources Management, jointly appointed between the Faculty of Forestry and the Faculty of Land and Food Systems at the University of British Columbia. The research focuses of her Indigenous Ecology Lab are on the application of a food systems lens to restoration ecology and invasion biology, and the relationships between native and invasive plants and soil microbes. The lab works entirely in service to the land-healing research needs of Indigenous communities, particularly in the context of building climate resiliency and major climate event recovery (wildfire). Prior to her academic appointment, Dr. Grenz was the Executive Director of the Invasive Species Council of Metro Vancouver and ran her own invasive plant management company, Greener This Side, managing invasive species for government agencies. Dr. Grenz has just published Medicine Wheel for the Planet: A Journey Toward Personal and Ecological Healing, a book based on her PhD dissertation published by Knopf Canada (an imprint of Penguin Random House) and the University of Minnesota Press (USA).
Chepximiya Siyam’ Chief Janice George is an hereditary chief of the Skwxwú7mesh Úxwumixw. She is an acclaimed weaver, educator, and trained museum curator. George is the co-founder of the L’hen Awtxw Weaving House and the co-author of Salish Blankets: Robes of Protection and Transformation, Symbols of Wealth. Don’t miss her TedxWhistler talk, The Spirit Moves Like a Storm.
This program is generously funded by the West Vancouver Memorial Library Foundation and the Province of British Columbia through the Ministry of Municipal Affairs.