Event Details
Ann Ronald, English Professor, University of Nevada, Reno
Ann Ronald's book, Friendly Fallout 1953, combines factual history of atomic tests in the Nevada desert with fictional vignettes that explore the impact of the tests on the people who participated in them as well as the civilian down winders. Told through the perspectives of military personnel, scientists, ranchers, and others, the stories bring to life a turbulent era when Cold War fears, patriotism, scientific ambition, and popular excitement often collided with the welfare of ordinary citizens and the environment. Ronald evokes the explosions in all their terrifying magnificence and explores the diverse, sometimes conflicting, emotions of a generation that saw atomic energy as its best protection against the horrors of another world war, even to the sacrifice of innocent people, wildlife and livestock.
About Ann Ronald: Ann Ronald grew up in the Pacific Northwest. From the first seminar paper she wrote, her dissertation, the first article she ever published, her first book, her last book and all the articles in between, Ronald’s work has always focused on landscape.
Graduating from Whitman College and then the University of Colorado, she managed to survive away from the West long enough to complete her PhD at Northwestern University in 1970 (she promised herself she would never live east of the Rockies again and she’s kept her vow). Ronald found a job at the University of Nevada, Reno, as soon as she finished graduate school and has worked at UNR ever since, first as an English professor, later as dean of the College of Arts and Science, and now as an English professor again. Ann teaches a variety of British and American literature courses. Partial retirement means she only teaches during the spring semesters, but she regularly offers a graduate seminar in Creative Nature Writing as well as undergraduate courses such as Western American Writers, Major Environmental Texts, Western Women Writers and American Autobiography.
Ann Ronald was named UNR's Outstanding Researcher in 2005. She was elected to the Nevada Writers Hall of Fame in 2006. Despite her active professional career, Ann Ronald has never given up her enthusiasm for landscape and the out-of-doors. She recently backpacked in the High Sierra and hiked hut-to-hut in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. She plans more such high-country trips.
