Join author and poet, Helen Humphreys, and RBG’s Herbarium Curator and Field Botanist, Nadia Cavallin as they discuss Helen’s new book, Field Study, that takes a deep look at the forgotten world of herbariums and the people who amassed collections of plant specimens in the 19th and 20th centuries. From Emily Dickinson’s and Henry David Thoreau’s collections to amateur naturalists whose names are forgotten but whose collections still grace our world, herbariums are the records of the often-humble plants that are still with us and those that are lost. In Field Study, Helen takes you through a year at a herbarium while she considers life and loss and the importance of finding solace in nature.

Fee: $18 Service Fee (Members $6*)

Please pre-register by September 13**

About Helen Humphreys:

Portrait of Helen Humphrey

Helen Humphreys is the award-winning author of nine novels, four books of poetry, and five works of creative non-fiction. She has won the Rogers Writers Trust Fiction Prize, the City of Toronto Book Award, and a Lambda Prize for fiction and her work has been shortlisted for the Governor General’s Literary Award and the Trillium Award and longlisted for the Dublin Impac Award and the B.C. National Award for Non-Fiction. Several of her books were chosen by the New York Times as Notable Books of the year. Her work has been published internationally and has been optioned for stage, opera, TV and film. She lives and writes in Kingston, Ontario.

About Field Study

Award-winning poet and beloved author Helen Humphreys discovers her local herbarium and realizes we need to look for beauty in whatever nature we have left – no matter how diminished

Helen Humphreys returns to her series of nature meditations in this gorgeously written and illustrated book that takes a deep look at the forgotten world of herbariums and the people who amassed collections of plant specimens in the 19th and 20th centuries. From Emily Dickinson”s and Henry David Thoreau”s collections to the amateur naturalists whose names are forgotten but whose collections still grace our world, herbariums are the records of the often-humble plants that are still with us and those that are lost. Over the course of a year, Humphreys considers life and loss and the importance of finding solace in nature.

Illustrated throughout with images of herbarium specimens, Humphreys”s own botanical drawings, and archival photographs, this will be the perfect gift for Humphreys”s many fans, nature enthusiasts, and for all who loved Birds Art Life.