Thursday September 24
7:00 at Blue Hill Public Library
5 Parker Point Road
Blue Hill, Maine 04614
co-sponsored by Blue Hill Public Library
In this collection of short essays, Alice Hotopp tells the story of Atlantic Puffins and other seabirds who breed on desolate rocks along the Maine coast, and the heroic efforts of generations of biologists whose dedication has kept their nesting colonies safe and flourishing ever since the young biologist Steve Kress brought the first puffins back to Eastern Egg Rock in 1969. Interwoven with this story are personal stories of individuals who spend years of their lives on desolate rocks in the middle of the sea in order to maintain and protect breeding colonies of seabirds. Filled with insight, information and inspiration, Atlas of Kinship is a celebration of human effort and resolve, and an affirmation of hope in the face of ecological fear.
Alice Hotopp is an ecologist and writer. She holds a PhD from the University of Maine in Ecology and Environmental Sciences.Atlas of Kinshipis her debut book.
Coco Faber is a field biologist and visual artist. She has spent over a decade working with birds, from prairie chickens to owls to albatrosses. Her love for the seabirds of the North Atlantic is the through-line in her work, bringing her back to the Gulf of Maine summer after summer. There, she lives and works on Seal Island, a stretch of granite that hosts the largest Atlantic Puffin colony in Maine, along with many other seabird species. Her art focuses on how humans and animals relate.