Neuroscientist and Environmental Journalist
Clayton Page Aldern
author of The Weight of Nature and co-author of Homelessness Is a Housing Problem
in conversation with series host
Michael N. McGregor
award-winning author of Pure Act and the forthcoming novel The Last Grand Tour
6 p.m., Thursday, October 10
Cascadia Art Museum, 190 Sunset Ave, Edmonds, WA 98020
(To order tickets through the Cascadia’s website, click here)
After earning master’s degrees in neuroscience and public policy at the University of Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, Clayton Page Aldern ignored advice to establish himself as a scientist and became an environmental journalist instead.
Since that time, he has contributed articles on vital topics of our day to The Guardian, The Atlantic, The Economist,Scientific American, Sierra Magazine and especially Grist, a nonprofit, independent media organization based in the Northwest and dedicated to telling stories of “climate solutions and a just future.”
Aldern has earned recognition as a Reynolds Journalism Institute Fellow, a Salzburg Global Fellow, a Seattle CityArtist, and a Climate Reality Leader, among other honors. He has also contributed to reporting teams that have won various awards, including a national Edward R. Murrow Award.
Aldern’s first book-length work was Homelessness Is a Housing Problem: How Structural Factors Explain U. S. Patterns (University of California Press, 2022) , which he co-authored with Gregg Colburn, providing important data and policy analysis.
In 2023, Dutton, a division of Penguin Random House, published his second book, The Weight of Nature, and it quickly transformed the conversation on climate change. Instead of affecting only the world around us, Aldern showed how climate shifts are altering our brains and putting our lives in jeopardy.
Newsweek called the book “groundbreaking,” the Financial Times lauded it for its “arresting revelations,” and Kirkus Reviews, in a starred review, proclaimed it “a lyrical and scientifically rigorous account of the emotional and physical toll climate change is taking on the human brain.”
You can purchase Aldern’s books online at the Edmonds Bookshop.
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About the Cascadia Writers-in-Conversation Series
On the second Thursday of each month, host Michael N. McGregor will bring one Northwest writer in front of an enthusiastic audience for a brief reading, a discussion of the author’s work, and a question-and-answer session with engaged literature lovers.
The series is intended to showcase the wealth of writing talent in the Pacific Northwest. To that end, it will feature writers from different genres at different stages of their careers who may have been overlooked rather than those readers already know.
Writers who appear in the series will be featured on WritingtheNorthwest.com.
This is a unique chance to hear talented writers speak in-depth about what it means to be an author in the Northwest and why and how they create their works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. The conversations will all take place in one of Cascadia’s beautiful galleries, with Northwest art lining the walls.
Cascadia Art Museum is the only museum dedicated to artists and their works from the Pacific Northwest. Focused on visual art and design from 1860 to 1970, it is committed to the belief that recognizing previously neglected artists who made significant contributions to the region’s cultural identity gives us a fuller and more comprehensive understanding of Northwest art history. The Writers-in-Conversation series signals the museum’s desire to highlight underappreciated Northwest artists in literature as well. The series is sponsored by the Edmonds Bookshop and Holman.
Michael N. McGregor is Seattle-based author whose book Pure Act: The Uncommon Life of Robert Lax was a finalist for a Washington State Book Award. After living his early life in Seattle, he spent 17 years as an award-winning professor of creative writing at Portland State University, where he helped found the MFA in Creative Writing program. A former member of the Advisory Committee for the Oregon Book Awards and Fellowships, he holds a BA in Journalism from the University of Oregon and an MFA in Creative Writing from Columbia University in New York. His next book, The Last Grand Tour (a novel), will be published on January 28, 2025, by Portland publisher Korza Books.
Note: I’m an affiliate of Bookshop.org, where your purchases support local bookstores. If you buy a book through a click on this website, I’ll earn a small commission that helps defray the costs of maintaining WritingtheNorthwest.com.