News Detail

10/25/2016

Kathleen “Kit” Kemsley, whose career in geography and national parks service has evolved into a second vocation as a published travel writer, will speak on Thursday, Nov. 10, at SUNY Cortland.

Kemsley will discuss “Travel and Nature Writing: A Sense of Place,” from 4:30 to 5:30 p.m. in Dowd Fine Arts Center, Room 207.

Presented by the College's Professional Writing Program and the Campus Artist and Lecture Series, the event is free and open to the public.

Kemsley will share ideas about her published travel writing and her book about the National Parks of the West. Her talk will delve into her travel blog, including tips for would-be bloggers.

Kemsley grew up in California and earned a degree in geography from University of California at Berkeley in 1980.

She began her professional career at Grand Canyon National Park and continued to work for various Public Lands Management agencies, both state and federal, for the next 33 years. Her work involved numerous technical writing tasks including completing annual reports, large fire summaries, forest management plans, and monthly severity outlooks for the U.S. Forest Service.

In her free time, Kemsley wrote Places of Power, a 1991 memoir about living and working in National Parks. The volume earned good reviews.

While continuing to work full time, Kemsley has written more than 100 articles that have been published in Rider, American Motorcyclist, Arete, Alaska Outdoors, Women On Wheels, Anchorage Daily News, Sidecarist and other magazines.

When she’s not at work, Kemsley rides motorcycles, travels by bus with chickens in Third World countries, camps in U.S. national forests, and visits natural hot springs. She runs 15 to 20 miles a week.

For more information, contact Victoria Boynton, professor of English, at 607-753-2082.