Best-Selling Author Barbara Kingsolver Calls for
Re-Thinking the Way We Produce the Food that Sustains Us

Santa Rosa, Ca. (May 2, 2007) - After having spent an entire year eating only food she grew herself or purchased from neighborhood farms, best-selling author Barbara Kingsolver is bringing her passionate, characteristically funny, and thought-provoking account of alternative eating to the Wells Fargo Center for the Arts. Kingsolver's May 16 th presentation is among her first public talks following the release of Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life (HarperCollins; May 1, 2007). The book, Kingsolver's first-ever work of narrative nonfiction, is an absorbing and provocative chronicle of how she and her family removed themselves from the industrial-food pipeline.

"Our highest shopping goal," Kingsolver says, "was to get our food from so close to home (if not grown on their own Virginia farm), that we'd know the person who grew it." She recounts how she, her husband, and two daughters learned how to plant and harvest, how to raise poultry and other animals, and how to eat seasonally - cultivating an all-but-lost appreciation for farming and the natural processes of food production.

The local-food project was the culmination of Kingsolver's longstanding conviction that we have lost our way when it comes to food. America , Kingsolver says, guzzles 400 gallons of oil a year per citizen for agriculture and each food item in a typical meal has traveled 1500 miles on average to reach our tables, burning up more fossil fuels. If everyone ate just one meal a week composed of locally and organically raised meat and produce, we would reduce our oil consumption by over 1.1million barrels (not gallons) of oil every week . Add the fact that our nation's battle with obesity is a direct result of American agribusiness's efforts to sell us more calories than we need, says Kingsolver, and it is easy to see that the environmental and health costs of the way we eat are too high. In Animal, Vegetable, Miracle , Barbara Kingsolver makes a compelling case for putting the kitchen back at the center of family life, and diversified farms at the center of the American diet.

Barbara Kingsolver grew up in Kentucky and earned a graduate degree in biology before becoming a full-time writer. Her twelve published books include such best-selling novels as The Poisonwood Bible and Animal Dreams. In 2000, she was awarded the National Humanities Medal, our country's highest honor for service through the arts.

Tickets

Part of the Copperfield's Books Readers Series, the Wells Fargo Center for the Arts presents Barbara Kingsolver, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, May 16 at 8pm. Tickets ($20, $35, $49) are available at the Box Office, located at 50 Mark West Springs Road in Santa Rosa, by phone at 707-546-3600, or online at www.wellsfargocenterarts.com. Proceeds benefit the Occidental Arts and Ecology Center.

 

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The non-profit Wells Fargo Center for the Arts is the North Bay's premier arts organization presenting world-class performances, contemporary sculpture, festivals, and events to 500,000 residents and visitors each year. Together with its resident companies, the Wells Fargo Center for the Arts provides more than 100 annual performances, serves to present intriguing contemporary art, and is one of California's largest providers of arts education programs for children. Located in the heart of the Wine Country, the Wells Fargo Center for the Arts campus features spacious auditoriums, an intimate cabaret, and outdoor festival grounds with a big-top tent. Unlike many similar organizations, the Wells Fargo Center for the Arts is not aligned with any federal, state, or municipal entity-such as a city or university. The Center was created by and is supported by the community it serves, making it uniquely positioned as an independent, entrepreneurial-focused, non-profit arts organization. We serve to Enrich, Educate and Entertain - Connecting Our Community through the Arts.