In our IN CONVERSATION series we are inviting our community to join incredible local authors in conversation about a recent title. This August we are excited to announce John B. Wright's book FIRE SCARS, Wright will be speaking with writer and MSU professor Cathy Whitlock at Country Bookshelf on Wednesday, August 9th at 6pm. RSVP

John B. Wright is a geographer and conservationist with 50 years of experience in Montana. "Jack" has worked as a land-use planning director, conservation easement practitioner, and professor. He is the author of four non-fiction books: Montana Ghost Dance, Montana Places, Rock Mountain Divide and Saving the Ranch. He earned a Masters in geography at the University of Montana and his PhD in Geography from UC-Berkeley. Jack is an Emeritus REgents Professor at New Mexico State University where he taught courses in Biogeography, Environmental Planning, and The American West. His knowledge of forests, fire ecology, development conflicts, and Montana are based on both research and decades of hard-won personal experience. Fire Scars is his first novel. Jack and his wife Rachel live in Missoula's Rattlesnake Valley and spend the winter in an old adobe house in Las Cruces, New Mexico.

Cathy Whitlock is a Regents Professor Emerita at Montana State University.  She studies climate change and forest history and knows a lot about wildfire--the central theme of Fire Scars.  Her research has focused on Montana and the Yellowstone region, but she and her team have also investigated the fire history of Patagonia, New Zealand, Europe, and Tasmania.  She’s looking forward to a good conversation with John Wright about his first novel.