Kelly Ramsey Author Event - WILDFIRE DAYS

Join us at Lark & Owl Booksellers to celebrate the release Kelly Ramsey's memoir, WILDFIRE DAYS. Kelly will be joined by Juli Berwald, author of LIFE ON THE ROCKS.

If you would like a copy of WILDFIRE DAYS when attending this event, please choose the ticket option that comes with a copy of the book. We cannot guarantee how many extra copies we will have on site.

"Nobody has captured the violent dualities of wildfire, its destruction, and its visceral, almost inexplicable allure quite like Kelly Ramsey has in Wildfire Days. Her words will transport you to the hottest, smokiest, dustiest edges of some of the biggest wildfires in recent years, providing an intimate look at the devastation not only of wildfire, but of witnessing the places and people you love change before your eyes. This book is a captivating, detailed exploration of the culture of fighting fire in the American West, but beyond that it is a truly masterful rumination on growing and learning amidst--and in spite of--the scorched earth around us. I was left in awe."-Amanda Monthei, former wildland firefighter and host of Life with Fire podcast

About the book: In the exhilarating spirit of Wild and A Walk in the Park, an adventure-filled memoir of one woman’s struggle to succeed as a wildland firefighter on an elite, male-dominated crew as they battle some of the fiercest wildfires in the West.

When Kelly Ramsey drives over a California mountain pass to join an elite firefighting crew, she’s terrified that she won’t be able to keep up with the intense demands of the job. Not only will she be the only woman on this hotshot crew and their first in ten years, she’ll also be among the oldest. As she trains relentlessly to overcome the crew’s skepticism and gain their respect, megafires erupt across the West, posing an increasing danger both on the job and back home. In vivid prose that evokes the majesty of Northern California’s forests, Kelly takes us on the ground to see how major wildfires are fought and to lay bare the psychological toll, the bone-deep weariness, and the unbreakable camaraderie that emerge in the face of nature’s fury.

Despite the wear and tear of her rookie year in fire, Kelly gears up for a second season, determined to prove that not only can a woman survive this work, she can excel. But when her plans to marry her partner start to crumble and sparks fly with a fellow crew member, Kelly wrestles with whether she’s truly outgrown the self-destructive patterns she’s learned from her father, whose drinking and itinerant ways haunt her. And as the season wears on, she discovers how tenuous “belonging” can be amid ever-changing crew dynamics.

In this vivid, visceral, and intimate memoir, Kelly wrestles with the immense power of fire for both destruction and renewal, confronted with the questions: Which fires do you fight, and which do you let burn you clean?

About the author: Kelly Ramsey was born in Frankfort, Kentucky. She studied poetry at the University of Virginia and fiction writing at the University of Pittsburgh. She cofounded The Lighthouse Works, an artists’ residency program, and later moved to Northern California, where she worked for the US Forest Service as a trail maintenance worker, wilderness ranger, and wildland firefighter. Her writing has appeared inThe Washington Post,Sierra,Electric Literature, and the anthologyLetter to a Stranger. She lives in Redding, California, with her partner and their dog, Rookie.

About the moderator: Juli Berwald received her PhD in ocean science from the University of Southern California. The author of Spineless and a science textbook writer and editor, she has written for a number of publications including The New York Times, Nature, National Geographic, and Slate.