ForImmediate Release Contact: City Art Director Joel Long: joeltlong@yahoo.com George B. Handley andSteven Peck to read at City Art Salt Lake Public Library Main Branch 210 East 400 South Salt Lake City UT 84111 Wednesday September 19th,7:00—8:00 P.M. Brigham Young University professors George B. Handley andSteven Peck visit the Salt Lake City Library to discuss their work onWednesday, September 19th at 7:00 PM. This event is part of the City ArtReading Series. Handley will share work from his new book,American Fork. This book tells the story of a shared love of the Utah landscapethat heals family wounds for two unlikely friends Zacharias Harker, a brilliantbotanist and an aging recluse, and Alba, a young woman he hires to paintflowers for a book he is writing on the implications of climate change focusedon the wildflowers of Utah’s Wasatch Mountains. Over the course of their unlikely friendship,Harker convinces Alba to return to Chile to learn the story, long hidden fromher by her mother, of her father’s disappearance under Pinochet. As Americagrows more distrusting of diversity, Alba commits her art to the protection ofthe environment and to a more inclusive meaning of family and belonging whileshe and her husband, John, strive to learn Harker’s hidden past and include himin their lives before it is too late. Rooted in the Mormon heritage of Utah buthemispheric in its reach, American Fork is a story of restoration and healingin the wake of loss and betrayal. Handley writes and researches on theintersection between religion, literature, and the environment, with a specialinterest in postcolonial literature. His scholarship has also focused on theenvironmental values of Mormonism and he frequently speaks publicly in his homestate of Utah about environmental values and issues. In addition to hisscholarly writing, he writes creatively. This includes his environmentalmemoir, Home Waters, which won the 2011 prize for best memoir from theAssociation of Mormon Letters. In Tales from Pleasant Grove, Steven Peckcreates a breathtaking collection of short stories, harnessing the winds of awild creativity with gale-force unpredictability. This book is a wonder and amarvel. The imaginative breadth and speculative depth available here brings tolife dragons, fairies, witches, demons, and ghost, all set within a westernlandscape that in its own way proves just as amazing and other worldly as thefantastic elements at play within Peck's work. Steven L. Peck is an evolutionary biologist, blogger,poet, and novelist. He is the author of Gilda Trillim: Shepherdess of Rats, TheScholar of Moab, A Short Stay in Hell, and The Rifts of Rime, as well ascollection of short stories titled Wandering Realities. He has published twovolumes of poetry, Incorrect Astronomy and Fly Fishing in Middle Earth, and twovolumes of non-fiction reflections, Science the Key to Theology and EvolvingFaith: Wanderings of a Mormon Biologist. He is a blogger at By Common Consent,and can also be found online at www.stevepeckniche.com. This event is made possible with support fromThe City Library, City Art, and Utah Humanities. Mostfeatured readings are followed by an open reading. Theevent is free and open to the public. City Art is sponsored by the Utah Arts Council, the Salt Lake City ArtsCouncil, Zoo, Arts, and Parks, X-mission, and audience donations. Joel Long