Charles Hood presents his new book published by Heyday, Double Hyenas and Lazarus Birds, at Clio’s in Oakland.

353 Grand Ave, Oakland, CA. Charles Hood will be in conversation with Marissa Ortega-Welch. Free to attend.

Charles Hood is poet and essayist, and an erstwhile factory worker, ski instructor, and birding guide in Africa. His recent books published by Heyday include Nocturnalia, an appreciation of nature after dark, and the essay collection A Salad Only the Devil Would Eat: The Joys of Ugly Nature, winner of the Foreword INDIES Editor’s Choice Prize. His wildlife studies have taken him around the world, from the high Arctic to the South Pole, and from Tibet to West Africa to the Amazon. Mammal no. 1,000 seen and recorded on his world animal list was a Crossley’s dwarf lemur in Madagascar. (Mammal no. 999 was a Malagasy white-bellied free-tailed bat.) Recently retired and now professor emeritus, Hood lives in the Mojave Desert with two kayaks, two mountain bikes, two dogs, and five thousand books.

Marissa Ortega-Welch is an award-winning radio and print freelance journalist interested in science and environmental stories that explore the narratives, history, and values that shape how we interpret science and make environmental decisions. She hosted the podcast How Wild, about the history and idea of wilderness. Her work has been featured by many outlets including High Country News, NPR, Latino USA, Reveal, The California Report, and Bay Nature. She is an editor for KALWPublic Media in San Francisco, where she teaches the nine-month Audio Academy, a professional audio journalism program. She has also taught radio journalism to high school students, adults incarcerated at San Quentin State Prison, and career-changing professionals.