Cynthia Barnett, Environmental Journalist in Residence at the University of Florida's College of Journalism and Communications in Gainesville, Florida, will take part in a conversation with Nicholas Allen, Professor in Humanities at UGA and director of the Willson Center for Humanities and Arts. The event is part of the Willson Center's Director's Series of conversations, curated by Allen.

Barnett is an award-winning environmental journalist who has reported on water and climate change around the world. Her new book, The Sound of the Sea: Seashells and the Fate of the Oceans (W. W. Norton, July 2021), is a natural and cultural history of seashells and the animals that make them—revealing what they have to tell us about nature, our changing oceans, and ourselves.

Barnett is also the author of Rain: A Natural and Cultural History, longlisted for the National Book Award and a finalist for the 2016 PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award; Blue Revolution: Unmaking America’s Water Crisis, which articulates a water ethic for America; and Mirage: Florida and the Vanishing Water of the Eastern U.S. She has written for National Geographic, The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, and many other publications.

Advance registration for the event, which will be conducted via Zoom webinar, is required and available here.