Environmental Fact and Fiction: Crime Novelists Take on the Polluters of Bodies and Souls

Online, July 23, 2013 (Newswire.com) - Pollution has been always linked to the environment but is it possible to pollute the human soul? That's the topic two crime novelists and a senior project manager at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will be tackling in a thought-provoking panel discussion on "moral pollution in fiction" called "Environmental Fact and Fiction: Crime Novelists Take On the Polluters of Bodies and Souls" at NYC famed bookstore, Bluestockings on Wednesday, August 7th starting at 7 PM. The event is free to the public.

Joining the discussion on environmentally conscious fiction will be author, Kenneth Wishnia, whose novels have been nominated for the Edgar®, Anthony, and Macavity Awards, and have made Best Mystery of the Year lists at Booklist, Library Journal, and The Washington Post, author Reed Farrel Coleman, a three-time winner of the Shamus Award for Best PI Novel of the Year and a two-time nominee for the Edgar Award, and Alison A. Hess, a hydrogeologist and senior project manager at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Ken defines moral pollution as "the idea that government corruption and the poisoning of our environment by corporations with very little accountability poisons, not only the land, air and sea but also souls of people whose livelihood depends on keeping this corrupt system of corporate maleficence running."

Wishnia's highly acclaimed stand-alone, The Fifth Servant, was an Indie Notable selection, one of the "Best Jewish Books of 2010" according to the Association of Jewish Libraries, a finalist for the Sue Feder Memorial Historical Mystery Award, and winner of a Premio Letterario ADEI-WIZO. He teaches writing, literature and other deviant forms of thought at Suffolk Community College in Brentwood, Long Island, where he is a professor of English. Wishnia's latest novel, THE GLASS FACTORY with an introduction by Reed Farrel Coleman (PM Press), will debut on August 1st, 2013. This is the third book in the Filomena Buscarsela Series.

Author Reed Farrel Coleman will also be joining the panel. Coleman has been called a hard-boiled poet by NPR's Maureen Corrigan and has published thirteen novels. He was the editor of the short story anthology Hard Boiled Brooklyn and co-editor of the poetry journal The Lineup. His short fiction and essays have appeared in Wall Street Noir, Crimespree Magazine, The Darker Mask, Long Island Noir and several other publications. Reed is an adjunct professor of English at Hofstra University.

On hand to provide an update on environmental issues of the last decade, including eight years of Bush-Cheney and five years of the Obama Administration, will be Alison A. Hess, a hydro- geologist and senior project manager at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Ms. Hess has more than 25 years of experience managing the investigation and remediation of hazardous waste sites. She is a Certified Professional Geologist and received her geology degrees from Smith College and the University of Arizona.

For more information on the authors, please see their official websites:
Kenneth Wishnia; http://www.kennethwishnia.com
Reed Farrel Coleman: http://www.reedcoleman.com/

About Bluestockings
Bluestockings is a radical bookstore, fair trade cafe, and activist center in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Through words, art, food, activism, education, and community, we strive to create a space that welcomes and empowers all people. We actively support movements that challenge hierarchy and all systems of oppression, including but not limited to patriarchy, heterosexism, the gender binary, white supremacy and classism, within society as well as our own movements. We seek to make our space and resources available to such movements for meetings, events, and research. Additionally, we offer educational programming that promotes centered, strategic, and visionary thinking, towards the realization of a society that is infinitely creative, truly democratic, equitable, ecological, and free. For more information, log on to www.bluestockings.com or call (212) 777-6028.