THIS PROGRAM IS FULL TO CAPACITY
Saturday, April 18th beginning at 1:00 PM
Arlington Street Community Center, 36 Arlington Street, Nashua, NH 03060
Join award-winning author Sy Montgomery and illustrator Matt Patterson for an engaging, family-friendly exploration of the fascinating world of turtles.
Drawing from the research behind their highly acclaimed books, Sy and Matt will share what they’ve learned about turtle behavior, habitats, and conservation, as well as the creative process of transforming field research into compelling stories and illustrations. Their 35-minute presentation will feature illustrations and insight into their research, followed by a Q&A session. Signed copies of their books will be available for purchase, with time for personalization and photos after the program. Guests can also explore turtle-themed information tables designed to spark curiosity and deepen understanding.
This program is free and open to the public. FULL TO CAPACITY.
Questions? Please email the program staff.
About Sy Montgomery
“Part Indiana Jones and part Emily Dickinson.” —The Boston Globe
To researches books, films and articles, Sy Montgomery has been chased by an angry silverback gorilla in Zaire and bitten by a vampire bat in Costa Rica, worked in a pit crawling with 18,000 snakes in Manitoba and handled a wild tarantula in French Guiana. She has searched the Altai Mountains of Mongolia’s Gobi for snow leopards, hiked into the trackless cloud forest of Papua New Guinea to radio-collar tree kangaroos, and learned to scuba dive in order to commune with octopuses, sharks, and giant oceanic manta rays. And for her recent bestseller Of Time and Turtles, she befriended a 42-pound wild snapping turtle named Fire Chief, who shows his extraordinary trust by allowing her to feed him by hand.
Sy is the author of 38 books for adults and children, many of them winners of numerous honors and awards. Her work has been featured in National Geographic TV specials, and she is a frequent speaker at universities and schools, libraries and museums, as well as a variety of podcasts and radio productions. Read more about Sy, including a list of her publications.
About Matt Patterson in his own words
From as far back as I remember, I’ve loved both wildlife and art. I grew up in the small, rural New Hampshire town of New Ipswich. In my free time I was always either out fishing, searching for turtles and snakes or I was painting. My father was a biology teacher and our home hosted a large menagerie of animals, including a turtle named Heathcliff and two pigeons named Mel and Leroy.
My work has twice received the Roger Tory Peterson Wild American Art Award, the Artist For Conservation Medal of Excellence and the international wildlife art award, The Golden Turtle. My work has also been featured in Fine Art Connoisseur Magazine, Artists Magazine, Yankee Magazine and other publications. When I’m not painting, I still spend my free time looking for turtles and snakes, fishing, and kayaking.
I both illustrated and was a major character in the 2023 New York Times bestseller, Of Time and Turtles: Mending the World, Shell by Shattered Shell. Working with National Book Award finalist author Sy Montgomery, we volunteered for three years with a turtle rescue organization, visited and documented the conservation and breeding of some of the world’s rarest turtles at the Turtle Survival Center, protected the nests of five species of native New England turtles, and rescued cold-stunned sea turtles who had washed up on the wintry beaches of Cape Cod. The same year, HarperCollins also published Sy’s and my picture book, The Book of Turtles, which won seven national awards, including a Sibert Honor, a Riverby Award, and a Cook Prize Gold Medal. Read more about Matt.