John Freeman is the editor of “Freeman’s,” a literary annual published by Grove Press, and executive editor at Alfred A. Sharks in the Time of Saviors is his first novel. Today, he lives with his wife and daughters in Minneapolis. He was a 2015 Tin House Summer Scholar and 2015 Bread Loaf work-study scholar. His work has appeared in “Best American Nonrequired Reading,” “McSweeney’s,” and “Electric Literature’s Recommended Reading,” among other outlets. Kawai Strong Washburn was born and raised on the Hamakua coast of the Big Island of Hawai’i. She serves as poetry faculty for the Writing Workshops in Greece and is professor of English and Creative Writing in the University of Mississippi’s MFA program.

Her writing appears in Poetry, the New York Times Magazine, ESPN, and Tin House. Other awards for her writing include fellowships and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, Mississippi Arts Council, and MacDowell.

Kawai Strong Washburn’s debut novel “Sharks in the Time of Saviors,” is about the supernatural events that force a family to reckon with the meaning of heritage and the cost of survival.Īimee Nezhukumatathil is the author “World of Wonders,” an illustrated essay collection, as well as of four books of poetry, most recently, “Oceanic,” winner of the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Award. How and why do we write about a natural world in crisis? What are the ethics of doing so? What lesson can we draw on from biodiversity for our own cultures?Īimee Nezhukumatathil is an acclaimed poet and author of the illustrated essay collection “World of Wonders.” It’s a book about the natural world and the way its inhabitants can teach, support, and inspire us. Freeman sat down with authors Aimee Nezhukumatathil and Kawai Strong Washburn to talk about writing and the environment, and the conversation naturally turns to language and its relationship to history, connection, identity and the natural world. On this episode of “Literary Arts: The Archive Project,” we feature an event from the 2021 Portland Book Festival, moderated by author and editor, John Freeman. The event title keyed off of Freeman’s anthology of the same name: Tales of Two Planets: Stories of Climate Change and Inequality in a Divided World.

Kawai strong washburn