Maumee River book reading to take place on DC campus

September 5, 2018

DEFIANCE, Ohio - The departments of English and Restoration Ecology at Defiance College will host a reading of the book “In the Watershed” by author Ryan Schnurr on Tuesday, Sept. 25, at 3:30 p.m. on the DC campus. The event will take place in the Buchman Boardroom of the Serrick Campus Center.

The author will take the audience on an imaginary historical, ecological, and cultural trip down the Maumee River from Fort Wayne to Toledo. Listeners will learn of the influence of glaciers, the role of the river in Native American history, and its relevance to contemporary environmental issues.

Schnurr is a writer, scholar and teacher from northeast Indiana. His writings have been published by Atlas Obscura, Terrain.org, Old Northwest Review, Midwestern Gothic, and Belt Magazine, among other publications. Pieces he has written have been selected for the anthologies “Rust Belt Chicago” (Belt, 2017) and “Voices from the Rust Belt” (Picador, 2018).

Schnurr is currently a doctoral student at Purdue University where he received the 2016-17 Lynn Fellowship in American Studies. He has also taught and studied at the University of Illinois at Chicago and Huntington University. Before graduate school, he worked as a writer, editor and photojournalist for a series of publications in northeast Indiana.

“In the Watershed,” published by Belt, is his first book. Author Mark Athitakis said Schnurr “writes about nature intimately and with a sense of wonder, but he’s forever alert to the ways our environment is wounded and reshaped by our greed and neglect. The Maumee River … {is} a rich, complex, and fragile place, and Schnurr is a superb guide through it.”

Defiance College, chartered in 1850, is an independent, liberal arts-based institution in Northwest Ohio offering more than 40 undergraduate programs of study as well as graduate programs in education and business. Defiance College has received national recognition for its educational experience of service and engagement. The College website is www.defiance.edu.