ACC Library to host Ga. author and naturalist Mark Warren at two December events

Award-winning Georgia author and naturalist Mark Warren will visit the Athens-Clarke County Library for two events in December.

 The Ancient Ways of the Cherokee and How We Can Use Them Today

Teens and adults are invited to “The Ancient Ways of the Cherokee and How We Can Use Them Today,” with Warren on Wednesday, Dec. 7, at 6:00 pm. Warren will discuss how some of the most common native plants and trees were used by the Cherokee for food, medicine, insect repellent, crafts, shelter and fire.

 Warren is the owner of the nationally renowned Medicine Bow Wilderness School in Dahlonega and has been teaching nature and survival skills of the Cherokee to adults and children for half a century. He believes today's society can — and should — learn some valuable lessons and skills from those native people who inhabited this continent hundreds of years before European explorers ever landed on its shores.

“All of us who live in Southern Appalachia reside on land that once belonged to the Cherokee,” Warren said. “While these native people led lives of intimate daily interaction with their natural surroundings, most folks today have reduced nature to a backdrop of scenery. The great deficit in this scenario is our lack of understanding that we still depend upon nature. Air to breathe, water to drink, energy to consume for our daily actions. These are commodities that are easy to take for granted If these gifts are taken for granted, humans will have no reason to respect and conserve the pieces of the puzzle we call ecology."Warren has packed 50 years of teaching and knowledge about the Native Americans’ everyday life skills into a four-volume series of books titled Secrets of the Forest, which will be available for purchase at the Dec. 7 event.

 Café au Libris: A Writer’s Journey to Georgia Author of the Year

 On Thursday, Dec. 8, at 7:00 p.m., the Friends of Athens-Clarke County Library present Café au Libris with Warren. Warren has been nominated for Georgia Author of the Year almost every year for the last six years. For 2022, he had two books nominated and was named 2022 Georgia Author of the Year Finalist in Literary Fiction for his novel Song of the Horseman. Although he has been writing for most of his life, the road to publication has been a long journey fraught with disappointments. Warren’s career as a naturalist and teacher of Cherokee primitive skills makes itself known in each of his novels, making true the adage that says “write about what you know.” His research into the history of the American West has also guided him toward projects about some of our most controversial Western personalities. Warren will share about the road to becoming an award-winning writer in this personal and candid talk.

With two protagonists two generations apart, Song of the Horsemanfollows a Cherokee horse trainer in 1940’s North Carolina and his schoolteacher grandson in Chicago more than half a century later. Their two stories interweave, separate, and then finally mesh again into the promise of hope for a wayward grandson who finds his way back to a purpose by reconnecting with his native heritage.

 Warren is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of Georgia. At Medicine Bow, his nationally renowned wilderness school in the Southern Appalachians, he teaches nature classes and survival skills of the Cherokees. The National Wildlife Federation named him Georgia’s Conservation Educator of the Year in 1980. In 1998 Mark became the U.S. National Champion in whitewater canoeing, and in 1999 he won the World Championship Longbow title.

 Warren has written extensively about nature for local and national magazines. He lectures on Native American history and survival skills, and Western Frontier History presenting at museums and cultural centers around the country. He is a member of the Wild West History Association, and Western Writers of America. His Wyatt Earp, An American Odyssey trilogy was honored by WWA’s Spur Awards, The Historical Novel Society and the 2020 Will Rogers Medallion Awards under the original hardback editions, Born to the Badge (2018) and Promised Land (2019.) He is a double nominee for the 2022 Georgia Author of the Year Award for Song of the Horseman, and Indigo Heaven. Song of the Horseman was named the “Finalist” in the Literary Fiction Category. Indigo Heaven received a Silver 2022 Will Rogers Medallion Award for Western Fiction – Traditional, and The Cowboy, The Librarian and The Broomsman received Bronze in Western Short Stories. The aforementioned short story was also named “Finalist” for the Peacemaker Awards, Best Short Western Fiction of 2021.

 His published books include: from Lyons Press, Two Winters in a Tipi and the Secrets of the Forest series, from Five Star – Gale Cengage and Two Dot, Wyatt Earp, An American Odyssey (a historical fiction trilogy on the life of Wyatt Earp winner of a Spur Award and Will Rogers Medallion Award,) from Five Star – Gale Cengage Indigo Heaven, The Cowboy, The Librarian and the Broomsman from the anthology Librarians of the West: A Quartet, Westering Trail Travesties, and A Last Serenade for Billy Bonney, and from Speaking Volumes, Song of the Horseman Last of the Pistoleers, and A Tale Twice Told.

 These free events are presented by Friends of Athens-Clarke County Library. Books will be available for purchase and signing. The Athens-Clarke County Library is located at 2025 Baxter Street, Athens. For more information, visit athenslibrary.org/Athens or call the library at 706-613-3650.