October 18-19, 2022

As part of the Concord Festival of Authors, The Umbrella is pleased to host a reading, book-signing and writing workshop with Aimee Nezhukumatathil, the New York Times-bestselling poet and author of World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, & Other Astonishments (Barnes and Noble’s Book of the Year).

Free and open to the public, the book reading and signing will be held in The Umbrella Main Stage Theater144 on October 18 at 7PM. Advance signing copies of World of Wonders are available here. RSVP to attend this free event here.

On October 19, Nezhukumatathil will also lead a one-day-only Writing Workshop through The Umbrella Arts Education program, in partnership with The Umbrella Arts & Environment program. Workshop capacity will be limited, so writers interested in participating should sign up early here.

In anticipation of the visit, The Umbrella is also pleased to invite the public to participate in virtual book club discussions of World of Wonders, copies of which are available through the Concord Free Public Library and the Minuteman Library Network, Concord Book Shop, Milkweed Editions, and literary booksellers everywhere.

MORE ABOUT AIMEE

In addition to her best-selling illustrated collection of nature essays, Nezhukumatathil has four previous poetry collections: Oceanic (Copper Canyon Press, 2018), Lucky Fish (2011), At the Drive-In Volcano (2007), and Miracle Fruit (2003), the last three from Tupelo Press. Her most recent chapbook is Lace & Pyrite, a collaboration of epistolary garden poems with the poet Ross Gay. Her writing appears twice in the Best American Poetry Series, The New York Times Magazine, ESPN, Ploughshares, American Poetry Review, and Tin House.

Honors include a poetry fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Pushcart Prize, a Mississippi Arts Council grant, and being named a Guggenheim Fellow in poetry. In 2021, she became the first-ever poetry editor for Sierra magazine, the story-telling arm of The Sierra Club. She is professor of English and Creative Writing in the University of Mississippi’s MFA program.