Thursday, March 21st, 2024
9am - 3pm

2023-24 MBG Members: $30*
NonMembers: $35

* Members will receive a $5 refund after completion of registration

Consider Season Tickets - this lecture plus three others scheduled during the year! Click Here

Kathryn Aalto, New York Times Bestselling Author

This day will begin at 9am and will include morning and afternoon book presentations. Lunch is included. 

Morning session:
The Natural World of Winnie-The-Pooh: A Walk Through The Forest That Inspired The 100-Acre Wood
"A vivid guide to the 6,000 acres of Ashdown Forest in England, a landscape celebrated by A. A. Milne and illustrator E. H. Shepard as the make-believe Hundred Acre Wood where Christopher Robin and their friends had their adventures."
— The New York Times
"Aalto’s lovely book provides two great pleasures: a visit to the actual wild spots that inform the fictional Pooh world and a chance to slip into our memories of the books themselves."
— The Washington Post
"Lavishly illustrated with superb photographs as well as reproductions of the delightfully familiar Shepard illustrations...an affectionate book written with enthusiasm."
— The Wall Street Journal
"A delightful exploration of Ashdown Forest, the 6,000-acre wildlife haven in southeast England that inspired A. A. Milne's Hundred Acre Wood."
— People Magazine

Afternoon Session: 
Writing Wild: Women Poets, Ramblers, and Mavericks Who Shape How We See the Natural World
Writing Wild celebrates the lives and work of women who found inspiration in nature and used the power of their pens not only to promote environmental awareness, but to change the very way we perceive nature. Through her engaging first-person essays, Kathryn Aalto highlights the role women specifically have played in shaping our lives and preserving the environment. Part travelogue, literary biography, and cultural history, both the book and talk delve into the ways women were limited by opportunities and societal expectations, and the way nature writing has evolved over time, from early nature diaries to contemporary environmental literature.

About Kathryn Aalto
Kathryn is an American landscape designer, historian, writer, and lecturer living in Exeter, England. A graduate of the University of California at Berkeley, She has Master’s degrees in Garden History and Creative Nonfiction with a particular interest in biography. Before her expat life, she taught American Literature of Nature and Place in the Pacific Northwest. She is a member of the Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment and the Association of Writers and Writing Programs.

This presentation day is part of the 2024 Marion Deane Drummond Lecture
Series - Bringing Horticultural speakers from across the country to Mobile, AL. Series sponsored by the Lilian Woolford Charitable Trust