Robin tours widely and has been featured on NPR’s On Being with Krista Tippett and in 2015 addressed the general assembly of the United Nations on the topic of “Healing Our Relationship with Nature.” Kimmerer is a SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor of Environmental Biology, and the founder and director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment, whose mission is to create programs which draw on the wisdom of both indigenous and scientific knowledge for our shared goals of sustainability. This new edition reinforces how wider ecological understanding stems from listening to the earth’s oldest teachers: the plants around us.

In 2022, Braiding Sweetgrass was adapted for young adults by Monique Gray Smith. Her first book, Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses, was awarded the John Burroughs Medal for outstanding nature writing, and her other work has appeared in Orion, Whole Terrain, and numerous scientific journals. She is the author of Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants, which has earned Kimmerer wide acclaim. Robin Wall Kimmerer is a mother, scientist, decorated professor, and enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation.

We are excited to announce our 2023 Common Reading Experience author, Robin Wall Kimmerer. The diversity of voices, backgrounds, traditions, and visions for the future showcased by SkyWords writers captures the possibilities writing offers for connection, understanding, and change.

SkyWords provides a space for engagement in discussion about narrative, writing craft, and the big ideas engaging our culture. SkyWords Visiting Writers Series connects students and the Durango community with emerging and established writers in dialogue about the power of story.

Braiding sweetgrass author