Library Author Series: The Wild Dark with Craig Childs
Monday, June 9, 2025 7:00pm
Library Hall
The award-winning author and "modern-day desert father" returns with The Wild Dark: Finding the Night Sky in the Age of Light, plus a Star Party with the CMC Sky Club
A night sky is not an absence of light; it is the presence of the universe. In The Wild Dark, master storyteller Craig Childs embarks on a quest to bike from the blinding lights of the Las Vegas Strip to one of the darkest spots in North America. Childs is a fearless explorer of both the natural world and the human imagination, making him the perfect guide to help us rediscover the heavens and to ask: “What does it do to us to not see the night sky?” In a book that is at once an adventure story, a field guide, and a celebration of wonder, Childs invites us to look up and to look inward, eyes wide and sparkling with stars.
“As ever, Childs weaves in urgent issues, from what artificial light does to birds, to night sky advocacy, to solutions for protecting the flickering stars that grace us. One leaves this gorgeous book filled with wonder..."
—Laura Pritchett, Playing with Wildfire
Join the post-talk Star Party with CMC Sky Club!
After the book talk and signing in Library Hall, head out into the Wild Dark with Professor Paul McCudden and Craig Childs for some Community Star Watching with the CMC Sky Club(link is external) at the Ball Observatory on CMC's campus (just up the hill from the library)! At approx. 8:30 pm (if skies are clear), everyone is invited to cross the street and head uphill to the Ball Observatory for a Star Party. The dome will be open on the observatory and additional scopes will be set up for viewing as well.
The Ball Observatory on the CMC campus is the generous gift of former Steamboat Springs resident Dr Robert Ball and his wife Ann. The 10 ft Pro-Dome observatory dome houses an 11" f/10 Celestron Edge HD Schmidt-Cassegrain reflector with a piggy-backed Explore Scientific f/6 ED80 APO refractor, both on a Paramount ME mount, run by The Sky X Pro. Learn more about the observatory and the Sky Club(link is external).
On reading and star gazing... an experiential note from the author: "Reading The Wild Dark, I hope readers will be transported to the darkest skies and be reminded of one of the most stunning, transformative elements we can witness from here on Earth. We spend so much of our lives in the daylight or in the burn of artificial light. I felt compelled to write about the value of darkness and a starry sky. Readers will learn what is at stake, how rapidly we’re losing these brilliant skies and how they are also coming back. I want the reader to go on a frolicking journey with me into a vast landscape. This will give them the time they need to adjust."
You may also like the following events from Torrey House Press:
Also check out other
Arts events in Steamboat Springs,
Literary Art events in Steamboat Springs,
Parties in Steamboat Springs.
