Elizabeth Rush — THE QUICKENING — Author Talk & Signing on Nov 14 at 6:30 PM
Ink Fish Books is proud to be a partner bookstore for this free community event with Barrington Land Conservation Trust
The event features Elizabeth Rush, author of the new book The Quickening: Creation and Community at the Ends of the Earth.
A Pulitzer Prize-finalist, author Elizabeth Rush tackles three daunting topics in her new book: Antarctica, climate change, and motherhood.
In 2019, fifty-seven scientists and crew set out onboard the research vessel Nathaniel B. Palmer. Their destination: Thwaites Glacier. Their goal: to learn as much as possible about this mysterious place, never before visited by humans, and believed to be both rapidly deteriorating and capable of making a catastrophic impact on global sea-level rise.
In The Quickening, Elizabeth Rush documents their voyage, offering the sublime—seeing an iceberg for the first time; the staggering waves of the Drake Passage; the torqued, unfamiliar contours of Thwaites—alongside the workaday moments of this groundbreaking expedition. A ping-pong tournament at sea. Long hours in the lab. All the effort that goes into caring for and protecting human life in a place that is inhospitable to it. Along the way, she takes readers on a personal journey around a more intimate question: What does it mean to bring a child into the world at this time of radical change?
What emerges is a new kind of Antarctica story, one preoccupied not with flag planting but with the collective and challenging work of imagining a better future. With understanding the language of a continent where humans have only been present for two centuries. With the contributions and concerns of women, who were largely excluded from voyages until the last few decades, and of crew members of color, whose labor has often gone unrecognized. The Quickening teems with their voices—with the colorful stories and personalities of Rush’s shipmates—in a thrilling chorus.
“An immersive journey through both exterior and interior landscapes, deftly crossing the boundaries between the frigid Antarctic and the warm heart.”
—Robin Wall Kimmerer
Elizabeth Rush is the author of The Quickening: Creation and Community at the Ends of the Earth and Rising: Dispatches from the New American Shore, which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Rush’s work has appeared in a wide range of publications from the New York Times to Orion and Guernica.
She is the recipient of fellowships from the National Science Foundation, National Geographic, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the Howard Foundation, the Andrew Mellon Foundation and the Metcalf Institute. She lives with her husband and son in Providence, Rhode Island, where she teaches creative nonfiction at Brown University.
REGISTER for this event with Barrington Land Conservation Trust, and join us at Barrington Public Library, 281 County Road in Barrington.
Books will be available to purchase from Ink Fish Books at the event beginning at 6 PM, or in store, or online here.