Dinner with Michael Pollan

Point Reyes Station, CA – Best-selling author Michael Pollan will be in town October 18 to celebrate the formation of a fellowship in his honor at the Mesa Refuge writers’ retreat.

Michael Pollan, hailed by Time and Newsweek as one of the most important thinkers and writers of our time, wrote portions of two of his best-selling books, The Omnivore’s Dilemma and In Defense of Food, while he was a writer in residence at the Mesa Refuge, a writers’ retreat that provides time and space for authors dealing with the major issues facing our society.  Since his two residencies, Pollan has encouraged several of his graduate students at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism to apply to the Mesa Refuge.

In honor of the ongoing relationship with Pollan, the Mesa Refuge is establishing the Michael Pollan Journalism Fellowship.  Funds are being raised so that each year an outstanding journalist working in the Pollan tradition, exploring the connections between nature and culture, will be invited to live and work at the Mesa Refuge for two weeks at no charge.  The first Michael Pollan Fellow is journalist and filmmaker Raj Patel, who will be in residence in January of 2015.

Michael Pollan said, “The setting, scale and tone of Mesa could not be more conducive to get­ting creative work done, especially work that deals with our engage­ment with the natural world.  As a way to sup­port writing about the environ­ment and social change, I can’t think of a wiser, more richly leveraged investment than the Mesa Refuge.”

On Saturday, October 18, Mesa Refuge is hosting a festive dinner to celebrate the launch of the Pollan Journalism Fellowship. The evening will begin with a toast on the terrace of the Mesa Refuge with the current writers-in-residence, followed by dinner at one long table at the nearby Heidrun Meadery, Gordon Hull’s farm dedicated to the bees, whose honey produces a wonderful sparkling beverage known as mead.  Michael Pollan, his wife Judith Belzer and 30 guests will dine on delicious, local, seasonal food prepared by Berkeley Chef Trudy Schafer, at the event coordinated by Elizabeth Hill of West Marin Food and Farm Tours.

Mesa Refuge Executive Director Susan Page Tillett said, “We wanted to create a memorable evening celebrating the bounty of food, friendship and the future of the Pollan Fellowship at this time of harvest.”

Donors who donate $5,000 or more to the Pollan Fellowship receive two complimentary tickets to the dinner.  There are also a small number of dinner tickets available for $500 per person.  For further information on the fellowship or the dinner, please contact Mesa Refuge Executive Director Susan Page Tillett at sptillett@mesarefuge.org or 847-452-7637. Or buy tickets online at the link below.