Art Cullen and Chris Jones Team Up for Environmental Book Talk in Decorah

When your school board votes, Decorah News is there to report. Chip in to keep your voice in the room. DECORAH — Join Art Cullen, author of "Dear Marty, We Crapped in Our Nest," and Chris Jones, Midwest writer and environmentalist, for a conversation and Q&A followed by a book signing at 7 p.m. Monday, Oct. 20, at T-Bock's Upstairs, 206 W. Water St., Decorah. The free event is sponsored by the Oneota Valley Literary Foundation, with support from Pulpit Rock Brewing and Dragonfly Books. "Art Cullen is a great journalist—and this is a great account of what the biggest crisis in human history looks like from the most fertile farmland on our planet. Read it, feel it, and get to work," said Bill McKibben, author of "Here Comes the Sun." "We have fouled our nest over the past half century in a way that was almost unavoidable, given our history of seeking domination—first over the Indigenous people of the Western World, then over their land," Cullen writes. "Native people for millennia lived with the land in a vital relationship. Europeans set out to transform that relationship brutally, and this destruction has reached a head. We simply cannot go on like this, washing our soil down the river while the planet bakes, ignoring our own immigration story." Cullen is editor and co-owner, with his brother John, of the Storm Lake Times Pilot in northwest Iowa. A Storm Lake native, he earned a journalism degree from the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minn., and has worked at newspapers in Algona, Ames, and Mason City. Joining Cullen in conversation is Chris Jones, who has served as lab supervisor at Des Moines Water Works, environmental scientist at the Iowa Soybean Association, and research engineer and adjunct associate professor at the University of Iowa. His research focuses on contaminant hydrology, nutrient and sediment transport, and agriculture and water quality. The event is part of Dragonfly Books and the Oneota Valley Literary Foundation's author series, which brings acclaimed writers to northeast Iowa for conversations about literature and ideas. More information is available at www.dragonflybooks.com. Stay informed, stay inspired! Newsletter sign up is free and join hundreds of free subscribers who rely on DecorahNews.com for trusted information and fresh perspectives.