HAPPY EARTH WEEK! Environmentalists, writers, filmmakers, cave divers, poets, aviators, musicians & artists explore their love for people & the planet

HAPPY EARTH WEEK! Environmentalists, writers, filmmakers, cave divers, poets, aviators, musicians & artists explore their love for people & the planet. This Earth Week, remember to renew your commitment to sustainability and share your love for the planet.

00:25 JERICHO BROWN - Pulitzer Prize-Winning Poet, Author of The Tradition & The New Testament

00:39 JILL HEINERTH - Explorer, Presenter, Author of Into The Planet: My Life as a Cave Diver

01:02 ALICE FULTON - Poet - Recipient of MacArthur “Genius”, NEA & Guggenheim Fellowships

01:31 BERTRAND PICCARD - Aviator of 1st Round-the-World Solar-Powered Flight, Explorer, Founder, Solar Impulse Foundation: 1000+ Profitable Climate Solutions

02:31 CHRIS BLACKWELL - Founder of Island Records - Bob Marley, U2, Cat Stevens, Grace Jones, Roxy Music, Amy Winehouse…Author of The Islander: My Life in Music and Beyond

03:31 ALICE NOTLEY - Poet & Artist - Academy of American Poets Award Winner

04:08 MIA FUNK - Artist, Writer & Host of The Creative Process reads “In My Dreams”

04:45 MAX STOSSEL - Award-winning Poet, Filmmaker, Speaker - Creator of Words That Move

05:04 GERALD FLEMING - Poet, Author of the collections The Choreographer · One · Night of Pure Breathing, among others

05:29 MARGO BERDESHEVSKY - Award-winning Poet of the Collections Kneel Said the Night · Before The Drought · Between Soul & Stone

05:56 SAM LEVY - Award-winning Cinematographer of Lady Bird Frances Ha · While We’re Young · Confess, Fletch

06:31 CHAYSE IRVIN - Award-winning Cinematographer of Blonde starring Ana de Armas, Beyonce: Lemonade, Spike Lee’s BlacKkKlansman

06:57 KARINA MANASHIL - President of Mad Solar - Creative Confidante for Kid Cudi - Executive Producer of Netflix’s Entergalactic, A24’s Pearl · X

07:37 CARL SAFINA - Ecologist - Founding President of The Safina Center - NYTimes Bestselling Author of Becoming Wild: How Animal Cultures Raise Families, Create Beauty, and Achieve Peace, and other books

Jericho Brown is author of the The Tradition (Copper Canyon 2019), for which he won the Pulitzer Prize. He is the recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard, and the National Endowment for the Arts, and he is the winner of the Whiting Award. Brown’s first book, Please (New Issues 2008), won the American Book Award. His second book, The New Testament (Copper Canyon 2014), won the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award. His third collection, The Tradition won the Paterson Poetry Prize and was a finalist for the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award. His poems have appeared in The Bennington Review, Buzzfeed, Fence, jubilat, The New Republic, The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Paris Review, TIME magazine, and several volumes of The Best American Poetry. He is the director of the Creative Writing Program and a professor at Emory University.

Jill Heinerth is a Canadian cave diver, underwater explorer, writer, photographer, and filmmaker. She is a veteran of over thirty years of filming, photography, and exploration on projects in submerged caves around the world. She has made TV series, consulted on movies, written several books and is a frequent corporate keynote speaker. Jill is the first Explorer in Residence for the Royal Canadian Geographical Society, recipient of Canada’s prestigious Polar Medal and is a Fellow of the International Scuba Divers Hall of Fame. In recognition of her lifetime achievement, Jill was awarded the Sir Christopher Ondaatje Medal for Exploration from the RCGS and the William Beebe Award from the Explorers Club.

Alice Fulton’s books include Barely Composed, a poetry collection; The Nightingales Of Troy, linked stories; and Cascade Experiment: Selected Poems. Her book Felt received the Bobbitt Prize from the Library of Congress, awarded to the best book of poems published within a two-year period. She has received an American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Literature and fellowships from the MacArthur Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, Guggenheim Foundation, and Ingram Merrill Foundation. Her other books include Sensual Math, Powers Of Congress, Palladium, Dance Script With Electric Ballerina, and an essay collection, Feeling As A Foreign Language. She lives in Ithaca, NY.

Psychiatrist, aviator and explorer, Bertrand Piccard made history in 1999 by accomplishing the first ever non-stop round-the-world balloon flight, and a number of years later the first round-the-world solar-powered flight. Piccard has dedicated his life to demonstrating sustainable development opportunities. He is Founder and Chairman of the Solar Impulse Foundation, which has assembled a verified portfolio of over 1400 actionable and profitable climate solutions. As a pioneer of new ways of thinking that reconcile ecology and economy, he uses his exploration feats to motivate governments and industries to take action. He is a United Nations Goodwill Ambassador for the Environment, Special Advisor to the European Commission, and is author of Réaliste, Changer d’Altitude, and other books.

Chris Blackwell, an inductee of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, is widely considered responsible for turning the world on to reggae music. As the founder of Island Records, he helped forge the careers of Bob Marley, Cat Stevens, Grace Jones, U2, Roxy Music, among many other high-profile acts, and produced records including Marley’s Catch a Fire and Uprising. Blackwell currently runs Island Outpost, a group of elite resorts in Jamaica, which includes GoldenEye—the former home of author Ian Fleming. He received the A&R Icon Award in recognition of his lasting influence on the music business. He is author, with Paul Morley, of The Islander: My Life in Music and Beyond.

Alice Notley, writer of over 40 volumes of poetry, reads from her newest collection Certain Magical Acts. Notley has received many awards including the Academy of American Poets’ Lenore Marshall Prize, the Poetry Society of America’s Shelley Award, the Griffin International Prize, two NEA Grants, the Los Angeles Times Book Award for Poetry, and the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, a lifetime achievement award. She is also a visual artist and collagist, and a book of her poem-drawings is forthcoming from Archway Editions. Notley reads two poems “Two of Swords” and “I The People”.

Mia Funk is an artist, interviewer, and creative educator. Founder of The Creative Process international educational initiative, podcast, and traveling exhibition. Her varied work sees her leading workshops and mentoring students around creativity, critical thinking, environmental ethics, arts and humanities disciplines. Her work appears in public and private collections, including the U.S. Library of Congress, Dublin Writers Museum, Office of Public Works, and other museums and culture centers. She has received awards and honors, including the Prix de Peinture from the Salon d’Automne and exhibited in the Grand Palais. Her paintings of Francis Bacon have won prizes and were exhibited in Paris and Brussels for Bacon’s centenary. As a writer and interviewer, she contributes to various national publications. Funk served on the National Advisory Council of the American Writers Museum and serves on the advisory board of the European Conference for the Humanities.

Max Stossel is an Award-winning poet, filmmaker, and speaker, named by Forbes as one of the best storytellers of the year. His Stand-Up Poetry Special Words That Move takes the audience through a variety of different perspectives, inviting us to see the world through different eyes together. Taking on topics like heartbreak, consciousness, social media, politics, the emotional state of our world, and even how dogs probably (most certainly) talk, Max uses rhyme and rhythm to make these topics digestible and playful. Words That Move articulates the deep-seated kernels of truth that we so often struggle to find words for ourselves. Max has performed on five continents, from Lincoln Center in NY to the Hordern Pavilion in Sydney. He is also the Youth & Education Advisor for the Center for Humane Technology, an organization of former tech insiders dedicated to realigning technology with humanity’s best interests.

Gerald Fleming is the author of the poetry collections One, The Choreographer, Night of Pure Breathing, Swimmer Climbing onto Shore, The Bastard and the Bishop, and numerous books for teachers. His work has appeared in many magazines over the decades, including New Letters, Michigan Quarterly Review, Hanging Loose, Carolina Quarterly, New World Writing, Volt, and The Prose Poem. The former editor of the magazines Barnabe Mountain Review and Forward to Velma. He taught for thirty-seven years in San Francisco’s public schools.

Margo Berdeshevsky, NYC born poet lives in Paris. Her books include "Kneel Said the Night (a hybrid book in half notes)”,"Before The Drought,” (a finalist for the National Poetry Series.) “Between Soul & Stone” and "But a Passage in Wilderness”. Recipient of Grand Prize for Thomas Merton Poetry of the Sacred Award. Her book of illustrated stories, Beautiful Soon Enough, received the first Ronald Sukenick Innovative Fiction Award from Fiction Collective Two (University of Alabama Press.) Other honors include the Robert H. Winner Award from the Poetry Society of America, the & Now Anthology of the Best of Innovative Writing.

Sam Levy studied film in Paris with French New Wave director Eric Rohmer and began his career as an apprentice to legendary cinematographer Harris Savides. Sam first gained recognition as a cinematographer when he photographed Wendy and Lucy for director Kelly Reichardt - voted “One of the Best 25 Films of the 21st Century” by The New York Times. He went on to shoot Frances Ha, Mistress America and While We’re Young for director Noah Baumbach, Changers and Frank Ocean's Blonded for Spike Jonze, Sermon on The Mount for Jerrod Carmichael, Maggie’s Plan for Rebecca Miller and Green Porno for Isabella Rossellini. Sam also photographed Lady Bird for writer/director Greta Gerwig - nominated for 5 Academy Awards including Best Picture and winner of The Golden Globe for Best Picture. Other new films include Mayday, which he also produced, Confess, Fletch, and She Came to Me.

Chase Irvin is a Canadian American cinematographer making waves in the film industry. Chayse has received immense critical acclaim for his vision and style. He has worked on features, shorts, and visual albums, most notably in his collaboration with Director Kahlil Joseph on the film Beyoncé: Lemonade. He lensed Spike Lee’s BlacKkKlansman, which received 6 Academy Award nominations, winning for best adapted screenplay. Chayse’s first feature film Medeas won the prestigious Best Cinematography Debut at the Camerimage Film Festival in 2013. Hannah, starring Charlotte Rampling, won a Silver Hugo from the Chicago International Film Festival. Chase is a member of the Canadian Society of Cinematographers. His latest films are Netflix’s Blonde starring Ana de Armas and A24’s God's Creatures starring Emily Watson.

Karina Manashil is the President of Mad Solar Productions. She began her career in the mailroom at WME (William Morris Endeavor) where she became a talent agent. She represented notable clients including Scott Mescudi, known by his stage name, Kid Cudi, and built her career taking talent into new arenas. In 2020, she partnered with Mescudi and Dennis Cummings to launch Mad Solar, which is backed by BRON Studios. Manashil then went on to Executive Produce SXSW fan-favorite X and its sequel, Pearl, directed by Ti West. Manashil is an Executive Producer on the Netflix animated series Entergalactic directed by Fletcher Moules. Entergalactic was created by Kid Cudi and features voiceover from Jessica Williams and Timothée Chalamet. It was released alongside its album of the same name from Kid Cudi on September 30th. Manashil is a native of Los Angeles and graduated from Chapman University with a BFA in Film Production.

Carl Safina’s lyrical non-fiction writing explores how humans are changing the living world, and what the changes mean for non-human beings and for us all. His work has been recognized with MacArthur, Pew, and Guggenheim Fellowships, and his writing has won Orion, Lannan, and National Academies literary awards and the John Burroughs, James Beard, and George Rabb medals. Safina is the inaugural holder of the endowed chair for nature and humanity at Stony Brook University, where he co-chairs the steering committee of the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science and is founding president of the not-for-profit Safina Center. He hosted the 10-part PBS series Saving the Ocean with Carl Safina. His writing appears in The New York Times, National Geographic, Audubon, CNN.com, National Geographic News, and other publications. He is the author of ten books including the classic Song for the Blue Ocean, as well as New York Times Bestseller Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel. His most recent book is Becoming Wild: How Animal Cultures Raise Families, Create Beauty, and Achieve Peace.

Mia Funk is an artist, interviewer and founder of The Creative Process & One Planet Podcast (Conversations about Climate Change & Environmental Solutions).