Two writers who have immersed themselves in the challenges of the past and the present that face valuable places on the southeast coast will receive the SELC Phillip D. Reed Environmental Writing Award of 2021, presented on March 25 during this year’s Virginia Book Festival.
The Reed Awards honor the late Phillip D. Reed, a distinguished lawyer, committed environmental activist and founding curator of SELC, by celebrating some of the best environmental writings in the south.
In the book category, former Georgia state legislator Paul Bolster will receive the Reed Award for Saving the Coast of Georgia: A Political History of the Coastal Wetland Protection Act. In the journalism category, Tony Bartelme of The Post and Courier in Charleston, he will receive the Reed Award for his detailed reporting on South Carolina’s coastal environment, including communities where the negative impacts of climate change are happening now.
The speaker for the Reed Award presentation will be Lulu Miller, co-host of WNYC Studios’ Radiolab and author of the widely acclaimed Why fish don’t exist, a scientific non-fiction and memoir thriller. The free online event will be at 2 pm Eastern Time.
To register and receive a link to the Zoom session, click here.
About the winner Paul Bolster
At the Saving the Georgia Coast, published by the University of Georgia Press, Paul Bolster brings to life the unlikely coalition of local residents, wealthy landowners, hunters and fishermen, members of gardening clubs, courageous politicians and others who have come together for more than 50 years to defend Georgia’s untouched coastal marshes. At the same time, it traces the intricate legislative maneuvers that resulted in the passage of the Coastal Wetland Protection Act of 1970, a law that remains the most comprehensive protection of wetlands along the Atlantic coast.
Bolster, who served in a diverse district of Atlanta in the Georgia House of Representatives for 12 years, does more than look back on this historic legislative achievement. It also examines the political challenges facing the Georgia coast today, including how to deal with relentless development pressures and how to deal with rising sea levels and other impacts of global warming. He continues to follow environmental legislation in the state capital and feels that lawmakers could look to the lessons of 50 years ago as a guide to protecting Georgia’s fragile coast today.
Freelance writer and historian, Bolster holds a Ph.D. degree in history from the University of Georgia and a law degree from the Georgia State University School of Law. He taught American history at Clark Atlanta University for 14 years and worked as a lobbyist for the Georgia Hospital Association and the American Hospital Association. A tireless advocate of affordable housing, he ran a health care program for the homeless in Atlanta and served for three years on Governor Nathan Deal’s Criminal Justice Reform Council.
About the winner Tony Bartelme
Tony Bartelme, reporter for special projects at The Post and Courier, is being recognized in part for its stories from the Rising Waters Project, a series that documents how the accelerating forces of climate change are affecting Charleston and South Carolina’s Lowcountry. Bartelme explains not just the science behind the most humid hurricanes, events intense “rain bomb” and floods at high tides, but also the political questions they raise and how they are making life more difficult for many South Carolinaians. In other pieces recognized by this year’s award, Bartelme exhibits the gift of linking science to the sense of place. This includes a story that traces the human and natural history of the South Carolina Santee Delta and another about the researchers’ quest to learn more about a rapidly disappearing swamp bird, the eastern black trail.
A graduate of Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, Bartelme is a three-time Pulitzer Prize finalist and has received some of journalism’s highest honors. He was awarded the prestigious Harvard University Nieman Fellowship in 2010. His investigative reporting exposed government corruption and explored issues ranging from changes in oceanic plankton to the global shortage of doctors. Your last book, A surgeon in the village: an American doctor teaches brain surgery in Africa, was published by Beacon Press.
About featured speaker Lulu Miller
Lulu Miller is a Peabody Award winning science journalist who fell deeply in love with radio when she joined the WNYC Studios’ team Radiolab, initially as a volunteer. She returned to the program as a co-host last year. She is also a co-founder of NPR’s Invisibility, a show about the invisible forces that shape human behavior. Her book Why fish don’t exist was hailed as a wonderful debut and was listed among the best books of 2020 by The Washington Post, NPR, Chicago Tribune and Smithsonian. He follows the life of taxonomist David Starr Jordan – the first president of Stanford University and an advocate of the eugenics movement – and reveals the triumphs and the dark side of his relentless search for order in a chaotic world. His book is also a deeply personal story about how to continue when everything seems lost. Miller graduated from Swarthmore College and obtained a master’s degree in fiction writing from the University of Virginia.