The Astonishing World of Aimee Nezhukumatathil

Free Public Reading

Thursday, April 11, 2024, 7-10pm

RSVP

San Antonio Botanical Garden
Betty Kelso Center
555 Funston Pl, San Antonio, TX 78209

Featured Moderator 
Monika Maeckle

Ticketed Autograph Luncheon

Fri, April 12, 11:30am-1:30pm
The McNay Art Museum
6000 N New Braunfels Ave
San Antonio, TX 78209

Click here to purchase tickets and sponsorships at Eventbrite.

Featured MC
Norma Martinez

Featured Moderator 
Naomi Shihab Nye

Autograph Series presents writers of national and international stature—many of them recipients of major prizes such as the Pulitzer or National Book Award—in free public performances followed by an audience Q&A and book signing. A ticketed luncheon with the visiting writer partially supports the Autograph Series. Recent Autograph writers include Margaret Atwood, U.S. Poet Laureate Juan Felipe Herrera, Sandra Cisneros, Luis Alberto Urrea, Ben Fountain, and Terrance Hayes, among others.

Join Gemini Ink for an unforgettable 2024 Autograph Series, featuring the beloved and acclaimed poet and eco-writer, Aimee Nezhukumatathil, whose 2020 New York Times best-selling illustrated collection of nature essays, WORLD OF WONDERS: IN PRAISE OF FIREFLIES, WHALE SHARKS, & OTHER ASTONISHMENTS (Milkweed Editions), was chosen as Barnes and Noble’s Book of the Year! Don’t miss this funny, candid author, who speaks powerfully about the realities of being a writer of color and writes with passion about the amazing world of creatures and plant life around us. A timely voice and presence to bring to our city, Aimee Nezhukumatathil is not to be missed!

Praise is abundant for this collection and the writing of Aimee Nezhukumatathil:

World of Wonders, kind of like Aimee, is flabbergasted, gobsmacked, and astonished with glee by all kinds of creatures and phenomena, all kinds of kin, from flamingos to catalpas, from monsoons to corpse flowers, from dancing frogs to axolotls.” ―Ross Gay, Poets & Writers

“A stunning union of biography, poetry, philosophy, and science; (this collection) is imbued with a love for her readers and for the natural world, and with a hope that people of color will feel more seen in nature writing.” – The Rumpus

Experience the Astonishing World of Aimee Nezhukumatathil
April 11th, free public reading/author talk at the beautiful San Antonio Botanical Garden
April 12th, ticketed luncheon at the McNay Art Museum

Aimee Nezhukumatathil is the author of the New York Times best-selling illustrated collection of nature essays, WORLD OF WONDERS: IN PRAISE OF FIREFLIES, WHALE SHARKS, & OTHER ASTONISHMENTS (2020, Milkweed Editions), which was chosen as Barnes and Noble’s Book of the Year and named a finalist for the Kirkus Prize. She also wrote four previous poetry collections: OCEANIC (Copper Canyon Press, 2018), LUCKY FISH (2011), AT THE DRIVE-IN VOLCANO (2007), and MIRACLE FRUIT (2003), the last three from Tupelo Press.  Her most recent chapbook is LACE & PYRITE, a collaboration of epistolary garden poems with the poet Ross Gay. Her writing appears twice in the Best American Poetry Series, The New York Times Magazine, ESPNPloughshares, American Poetry Review, and Tin HouseBITE BY BITE: NOURISHMENTS AND JAMBOREES (Ecco/HarperCollins)–an illustrated essay collection celebrating food–is forthcoming in May 2024.

Honors include a poetry fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Pushcart Prize, a Mississippi Arts Council grant, and being named a Guggenheim Fellow in poetry. In 2021, she became the first-ever poetry editor for SIERRA magazine, the story-telling arm of The Sierra Club. She is professor of English and Creative Writing in the University of Mississippi’s MFA program.

Autograph Series Committee

Zinnia Bayardo, Jay Brandon, Kelly Grey Carlisle, PhD, Wondra Chang, Marisol Cortez, Kimberly Garza, Greg Hazleton, Dr. Mary Lynne Hill, Anne Messbarger-Eguia, Octavio Quintanilla, Christa Squyres, Sarah Joy Thompson, Alexandra van de Kamp, Eddie Vega, Mobi Warren