JULY 15, 2002
NATURE WRITER AND PHILOSOPHER KATHLEEN DEAN MOORE TO GIVE PUBLIC READING

Combining a critical mind, an observant eye, a compassionate heart, and a love for language, Kathleen Dean Moore has established a unique voice among American nature writers. She will be visiting northwest Wisconsin this month to work with the Cable Natural History Museum’s writing internship program New Voices for Nature. Moore also will give a public reading from her work at 7:00 p.m. on Sunday, July 28, at the Drummond Public Library. The event is free and open to the public; refreshments will be provided.

Moore works as a professor of philosophy at Oregon State University, but she’s cultivated a lifelong interest in observing and writing about the natural world.

"It always surprises people to learn that my day job is as a philosophy professor," she says. "In my writing, I try to bring philosophy to life, so I write about forest clear-cutting, family ties, wild rivers, pain, country-western dancing, night-fishing, coots, newts, and — what else? — the meaning of life."

Moore has published two books of essays: Holdfast: At Home in the Natural World, winner of the 2000 Sigurd Olson Nature Writing Award; and Riverwalking: Reflections on Moving Water, recipient of a 1996 Northwest Booksellers’ Award. Her essays and articles also have been published in journals that range from Field and Stream, Audubon, and Wild Earth to the North American Review and the New York Times Magazine, among others. She is the founding director of the Spring Creek Project for ideas, nature and the written word.

Moore’s academic research focus is in the philosophy of law, with a particular interest in the nature of forgiveness and reconciliation. She also is the author of several textbooks about critical thinking and effective writing.