Mallory McDuff Publishes a New Book Featuring Women and Climate Justice: Love Your Mother: 50 states, 50 stories, and 50 women united for climate justice.
Special to The Echo | March 23, 2023
Students in Mallory McDuff’s classes quickly recognize how much she loves to name-drop. If someone is interested in school gardening, for example, she’ll try to connect them to a Warren Wilson College (WWC) grad or a colleague working in the field. Making those connections is part of what she tries to bring to the classroom after teaching environmental education and living on campus for more than two decades.
So it’s not a surprise that her recent book shares the names and stories of fifty women leading on climate justice, one from each state in the country. The book is called Love Your Mother: 50 States, 50 Stories, and 50 Women United for Climate Justice, published by Broadleaf Books.
As a mother, teacher, and writer, McDuff wanted to give her two daughters, 24 and 17, and her students a roadmap to engage in climate justice in their communities, rather than be left feeling paralyzed by the enormity of the problem.
“It can feel overwhelming to sit alone and think about the climate crisis all by ourselves,” McDuff said. “So I wanted to tell stories of how women are joining together for collective action to create climate momentum.”
We know that women are disproportionately impacted by climate change and thus are critical to transforming society away from dependence on fossil fuels and toward renewable energy and environmental equity. So she set out to find women of diverse ages, backgrounds and vocations as inspiration for a new kind of leadership focused on the heart of the climate crisis.
Half of the fifty stories in the book are of BIPOC women, and six of those are Indigenous. While the book launches in April, she’s already sharing the names of women she met with her students.
“I had a student interested in documentary filmmaking, and I told the story of Anna Jane Joyner from Alabama,” McDuff said. “Joyner started a nonprofit called Good Energy and she’s consulting with Hollywood producers to integrate realistic climate narratives into TV and movie scripts.”
Another example she’d love to share with students is the climate story of Tiffany Bellfield-El-Amin, a Black farmer, birth doula and restaurant owner from Kentucky who connects other Black farmers with resources for farming in a climate crisis.
Love Your Mother lifts up the stories of women working toward a viable future, from farmer, rancher and WWC grad Donna Kilpatrick in Arkansas to writer Latria Graham in South Carolina. These women are poets, physicians, climate scientists, students, farmers, writers, documentary filmmakers, and more–representing states from Alaska to Alabama, New Mexico to New Jersey. Their work lights the way for conversation and collective action in our communities and in the world.
SIDEBAR
Want to learn more about Love Your Mother?
Signed, personalized copies of Love Your Mother are available in Asheville at Malaprop’s bookstore or they will ship books as well. There are also two public book events in April.
A book launch and talk hosted by United Way of Asheville and Buncombe County Tuesday, April 11, from 6:30 - 7:30 at Pleb Urban Winery at 289 Lyman St, Asheville, NC 28801. McDuff will speak and then facilitate a panel with WWC student Catherine Tsarouhtsis and WWC grad Lakyla Hodges.
A book event with music Wednesday, April 12, at from 6:00 p.m. - 7:30 p.m. at Malaprop’s Bookstore where McDuff will be in conversation with city planner and songwriter Liz Teague (who was also her college roommate).