Crooked River Reads: A Distinguished Author Series featuring Dr. J Drew Lanham

Join the Conservancy for Cuyahoga Valley National Park for a new series as we host five distinguished authors throughout 2021. Together, we’ll explore the crucial impact connecting with nature has on humankind and the impact humankind has on nature.

Lanham, author of The Home Place: Memoirs of a Colored Man’s Love Affair with Nature, will discuss what it means to embrace the full breadth of his African American heritage and his deep kinship to nature and adoration of birds. The convergence of ornithologist, college professor, poet, author and conservation activist blend to bring our awareness of the natural world and our moral responsibility for it forward in new ways. Candid by nature — and because of it — Lanham will examine how conservation must be a rigorous science and evocative art, inviting diversity and race to play active roles in celebrating our natural world.