The Mid-Shore community is invited to join legendary Chesapeake Bay writer Tom Horton as he moderates a panel exploring the art and science of conservation at Easton’s historic Ebenezer Theater at 2pm on Sunday, November 2.
The event is presented in celebration of the tandem centennial birthdays of the Talbot County Free Library (TCPS) and University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science (UMCES), in partnership with TCPS, UMCES’s Horn Point Laboratory, Shore Lit and Bluepoint Hospitality/Flying Cloud Booksellers. Attendance is free, with reservations required via shorelit.org.
Tom Horton is the nation’s leading environmental journalist on the Chesapeake Bay. He covered environmental issues for the Baltimore Sun from 1974 until 2006, has written for national outlets including National Geographic, Rolling Stone, New York Times, and the Boston Globe, and is the author of several books about the Bay.
Horton will be in conversation with authors Christopher Kondrich and Kyoko Mori, contributors to the new anthology Creature Needs (University of Minnesota Press, 2025), in which writers respond to published animal conservation studies with poems, stories, and essays.
Christopher Kondrich is the author of Valuing, selected by Jericho Brown as a winner of the National Poetry Series, by Library Journal as a Best Poetry Book of 2019, and as a finalist for The Believer Book Award. He currently teaches in the M.F.A. Program in Creative Writing at the University of Maryland and Eastern Oregon University’s low-residency M.F.A. in Creative and Environmental Writing.
Kyoko Mori’s award-winning first novel, Shizuko’s Daughter, was hailed by The New York Times as “a jewel of a book, one of those rarities that shine out only a few times in a generation.” She has taught at Harvard University and Goucher College and is currently on the faculty of George Mason University and Lesley University’s Low-Residency MFA Program in Creative Writing.
“When it comes to conservation, as these accomplished writers demonstrate, we need not only the scientific facts that illuminate the truth, but the words that move us to feel, and to act,” says Shore Lit Founder Kerry Folan.
“Literature offers us a way to engage with our most urgent questions about the world, including questions about how to be good stewards for the Eastern Shore. There could be no more perfect time to consider the symbiotic relationship between science and art than this year’s 100th birthday celebration of the library and UMCES. ”
The panel will begin at 2pm, with doors opening at 1:30pm. The first fifty arrivals will receive a free copy of Creature Needs, with additional books for sale courtesy of Flying Cloud Booksellers. A community reception and book signing will follow.
Additionally, Kondrich and Mori will lead a free creative writing workshop for high school students preceding the author panel, beginning at noon. Registration is required via shorelit.org.
Christopher Kondrich and Kyoko Mori are available for interviews. Please contact Kerry Folan [email protected] with inquiries. Images and other press materials are available in our media kit.
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