Steven G. Smith, a Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist, will speak at the Tolland Public Library on June 13 about his new book, “Under the Dark Sky: Life in the Thames River Basin.”
Smith will speak at 6:30 p.m. at the library at 21 Tolland Green as part of the Eaton-Dimock-King Authors Series, which is sponsored by the Tolland Public Library Foundation.
The book, published by Wesleyan Press and containing 92 vivid color photos, tells the story of contemporary rural life in eastern Connecticut and southern Massachusetts.
Anyone who treasures Connecticut’s “Quiet Corner” will enjoy this book, which showcases the picturesque Thames River basin. This watershed area is considered to be the last place where dark night sky can be viewed between Washington, D.C. and the Boston metro area. It is often referred to as the “Last Green Valley.”
The book also contains a foreword by noted outdoor writer Steve Grant, who wrote extensively about nature and adventure travel while working as a journalist at the Hartford Courant for 29 years.
Smith is an associate professor of visual journalism at the University of Connecticut whose work has appeared in numerous media outlets, including The New York Times, CNN and USA Today. He shared in a Pulitzer Prize for coverage of wildfires in Colorado in 2003 for the Rocky Mountain News.
The talk is free, but registration is required. To register, call the library at 860-871-3620 or register online at tolland.org/library.
Since 2010, the EDK series has brought well-known authors to Tolland, including Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Dan Barry, Chris Knopf, Caragh O’Brien, Dawn Metcalf, Susan Campbell, Denis Horgan, Jeff Goldberg, Cindy Rodriguez, Susan Schoenberger and Lucy Anne Hurston.

Author and photojournalist Steven G. Smith