Visiting Environmental Writer Will Speak at Brown College and During Film Festival

October 19, 2010 — The University of Virginia's Brown College hosts poet, environmental writer and outdoor adventurer John Lane, the first speaker of the 2010-11 Visiting Environmental Writers and Scholars Series, on Nov. 4 and 5.

A professor of environmental literature and creative writing at Wofford College in Spartanburg, S.C., Lane has received numerous awards for his writings about the ecology of the American South.

On Nov. 4, Lane will present his recent work on the 18th-century naturalist William Bartram, a Pennsylvanian most noted for his explorations of the American South in the 1770s. The event will be held from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. in the Kaleidoscope Room in Newcomb Hall. Lane will give a second talk on Bartram at the Ivy Creek Education Center from 3  to 4:30 p.m.

On Nov. 5, Lane will participate in the 2010 Virginia Film Festival, providing a lecture on his 2004 book, "Chattooga: Descending Into the Myth of Deliverance River," following a 2 p.m. screening of the film "Deliverance." Both the movie and the lecture will be held in Newcomb Hall Theater.

In his book, Lane describes journeying the entire length of the Chattooga River. He not only describes its natural beauty and danger, but also views it through the prism of James Dickey's book, "Deliverance," made into the 1972 film.

Lane's other books include: "The Best of the Kudzu Telegraph," a collection of his newspaper columns about environmental issues; "Circling Home," an account of settling down with a family in mid-life back in his hometown of Spartanburg; and "As the World Around Us Sleeps," one of several books of poems.

Lane has won numerous awards for his work, including a Hoyns Fellowship in Poetry from U.Va. in 1980 and the Phillip D. Reed Memorial Award for Outstanding Writing on the Southern Environment by the Southern Environmental Law Center in 2001.

— By Anne Bromley
 

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