To research books, films and articles, Sy Montgomery has been chased by an angry silverback gorilla in Zaire and bitten by a vampire bat in Costa Rica, worked in a pit crawling with 18,000 snakes in Manitoba and handled a wild tarantula in French Guiana.

She has been deftly undressed by an orangutan in Borneo, hunted by a tiger in India, and swum with piranhas, electric eels and dolphins in the Amazon. She has searched the Altai Mountains of Mongolia’s Gobi for snow leopards, hiked into the trackless cloud forest of Papua New Guinea to radiocollar tree kangaroos, and learned to SCUBA dive in order to commune with octopuses.

Sy Montgomery will discuss with Michael Frederick, Executive Director of Thoreau Society, her writing process and her best-selling memoir The Soul of an Octopus among other works spanning her long and adventurous career.

This workshop is part of the Write Connection at Thoreau Farm, a program in partnership with the Thoreau Society. Through writing workshops and author talks we support writers who expand on Thoreau’s extraordinary insights into life, nature, and social responsibility or find in Thoreau inspiration for living deliberately, practicing simplicity, and exploring new ideas for positive change.