Meet the Author Events at Gustavus Adolphus College

The public is invited to meet Sue Leaf, author of the book Potato City: Nature, History, and Community in the age of Sprawl, on Tuesday, April 19 at Gustavus Adolphus College. There are two events:

• At 5:30 p.m. in the banquet rooms in the C. Charles Jackson Campus Center, the public will have the opportunity to meet Leaf and hear a short talk during a “Meet the Author” dinner. Reservations for the dinner are $10 and can be made by calling the Office of Special Events at 507/933-7520 by Friday, April 15. This event is sponsored by Friends of Linnaeus Arboretum and the Gustavus Library Associates.
• At 7 p.m. in the Melva Lind Interpretive Center, the public is also welcome to hear Leaf’s presentation on her insights into the nature, history, and community in the age of sprawl. She will discuss the stories that lie beneath the veneer of a developing American suburb. Cost is $5 and includes coffee and dessert. Register at the office of St. Peter Community and Family Education, Suite 207, 600 S. Fifth St., St. Peter, MN 56082. Office hours are 8 a.m.-4 p.m. Monday-Thursday or register online. For more information, call 507/934-3048 and press zero for the operator. This event is a Gustavus Adolphus College continuing education program done in cooperation with the St. Peter Community and Family Education program, in collaboration with the Gustavus Book Mark.

Leaf, a 1975 Gustavus graduate, has been a resident of the Anoka Sand Plain — in North Branch, Minn., nicknamed “Potato City” — for 20 years.

“As the Twin Cities’ urban sprawl began to engulf once-rural North Branch, Leaf became an environmental activist, inspired by her education, her love of family and community, and her religious convictions. Hoping to inspire others, she advises us all to discover our own communities’ natural treasures before, through ignorance, we lose them,” according to the Boston Globe.

Leaf has taught biology and environmental science at Cambridge (Minn.) Community College, is currently president of the Wild River chapter of the Audubon Society, was awarded a McKnight Individual Artist Grant in 1998, and has been writing published in Utne Reader, Minnesota Monthly, Architecture Minnesota, River Magazine, Minnesota Volunteer, and Boundary Waters Journal.