Michael Grunwald Discusses His Book "The Swamp, the Everglades, Florida, and the Politics of Paradise" and Celebrates Marjory Stoneman Douglas' Conservation Legacy

We welcome Michael Grunwald to our WILD READ community beginning June 10 to discuss his book, The Swamp: the Everglades, Florida, and the Politics of Paradise as well as interweave our conversations with references to and in celebration of Marjory Stoneman Douglas,  champion of the Florida Everglades and founder of the Florida's environmental movement and author of The Everglades: River of Grass.



[from the Time Magazine website]

Michael Grunwald, a senior national correspondent for TIME, has written numerous cover stories, on topics ranging from the myth of biofuels to the mythical demise of California to the future of the Republican party. He joined TIME in May 2007 and is based out of Miami. Most recently, he wrote the first piece questioning whether the ecological damage from the BP spill has been overblown, transforming the coverage of the issue.

Previously, Grunwald spent nearly a decade at the Washington Post, where he served as a congressional correspondent, New York bureau chief, Outlook section essayist and national investigative reporter. He wrote about Hillary Clinton’s first Senate campaign, AIDS in Africa and Hurricane Katrina, and he also wrote thePost’s lead news story on the September 11th attacks. Prior to joining the Post, Grunwald spent more than five years as a local and national reporter at the Boston Globe. He has also written for The New Republic, Slate and many other publications.

Grunwald is the recipient of the George Polk Award for national reporting, the Worth Bingham Prize for investigative reporting and the Society of Environmental Journalists award for in-depth reporting, among other awards. For his August 2007 TIME cover story on New Orleans, Grunwald was awarded Understanding Government’s Prize for Preventive Journalism. He is the author of The Swamp: The Everglades, Florida, and the Politics of Paradise (Simon & Schuster, 2006), which won the gold medal for non-fiction at the Florida Book Awards.

Michael just published the following book: The New New Deal: The Hidden Story of Change in the Obama Era (Simon & Schuster, 2012)

Raised in Greenvale, N.Y., Grunwald holds a B.A. from Harvard College. Grunwald is married to Cristina Dominguez, a lapsed lawyer who now runs a Marimekko boutique. They live in South Beach with their son, Max, and their daughter, Lina.

from Everglades Digital Library collection

Michael will discuss Marjory Stoneman Douglas so here is a little background information about her:

Marjory Stoneman Douglas, 1890-1998.

Marjory Stoneman Douglas was born April 7, 1890 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. She was raised in Taunton, Massachusetts after the divorce of her parents. Marjory attended the public schools in Taunton, and Wellesley College, in Wellesley, Massachusetts, where she majored in English composition, graduating in 1912 with an A.B. degree. After her mother's death and the end of her brief marriage, Douglas moved to Miami to work with her father, Frank Stoneman, then the editor of The Miami Herald. Douglas left the Herald in 1923, after many years working on The Galley, a daily column that always included a poem. As an assistant editor on the paper, Douglas also wrote editorials urging protection and development of Florida's unique regional character in the face of rapid commercial development. After leaving the paper, she devoted herself to her literary career, writing of short stories, 40 of which were published in the Saturday Evening Postand other magazines between 1923 and 1938, many winning O. Henry and other awards. In 1947, Douglas published The Everglades: River of Grass, a best-selling guide and natural/political history that not only raised public consciousness regarding the Everglades but also helped to diminish the national misperception of wetlands in general as swamps. Douglas also became a leader of the successful campaign for the establishment of Everglades National Park and in 1969 helped to found the conservation organization Friends of the Everglades. Marjory Stoneman Douglas died in her home in Coconut Grove, Florida, on May 14, 1998 at the age of 108.

Biography prepared by Ruthanne Vogel, University of Miami [from Everglades Digital Library]