John McPhee, one of the foremost writers of contemporary American nonfiction, will give four public appearances at UC Davis Nov. 10-13.

Of particular resonance for the campus will be a public "reunion" Wednesday, Nov. 12, between the writer and UC Davis Professor Emeritus Eldridge Moores, a geologist featured in McPhee's Assembling California (1993). Moores guided McPhee on a 15-year series of tours across California that the author turned into a classic account of the geologic evolution of the Golden State. The free event will be at noon in 126 Voorhies Hall.

Later that day, McPhee will join noted nature writers UC Davis Professor Emeritus Gary Snyder and former U.S. Poet Laureate Robert Hass of UC Berkeley to discuss "Writing Nature in the 21st Century." The 4 p.m. event will take place in the AGR Hall of the Buehler Alumni and Visitors Center on campus.

McPhee will make two other public appearances. On Monday, Nov. 10, he will participate in a question-and-answer session beginning at 4 p.m. in the University Club with a reception to follow. Later that week, McPhee will read from his recent works at 4 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 13, in the University Club, with a reception to follow.

Fusing science, prose

McPhee's work weds science and the art of narrative prose, and his career has been prolific and diverse. The topics of his books range widely, through professional athletes (U.S. Sen. Bill Bradley, Arthur Ashe), the orange industry (Oranges), experimental aircraft (The Deltoid Pump-kin Seed), the merchant marine (Looking For a Ship), the atomic bomb (The Curve of Binding Energy) and Alaska (Coming Into the Country). His most recent book is The Founding Fish (2002).

McPhee's writing demonstrates an economic style and artful craft. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1999 for Annals of the Former World.

After he graduated from Princeton University in 1953, McPhee worked as a television screenwriter for "Robert Montgomery Presents" in the 1950s. He then joined Time magazine as an associate editor from 1957 to 1964.

He became a staff writer for The New Yorker in 1964, and "A Sense of Where You Are," a profile of basketball player Bradley, evolved to the first of McPhee's 28 books.

McPhee's visit is sponsored by the Snyder/Soderquist Distinguished Visiting Writers Series.

Funded by former UC Regent and businessman Charles J. Soderquist, the writers series brings to UC Davis major contemporary writers on nature, science and the humanities.