UNCW creative writing professor David Gessner received national attention last month when President Obama was spotted with a copy of his book, “My Green Manifesto: Down the Charles River in Pursuit of a New Environmentalism.” Gessner will make an appearance Thursday, Sept. 15 in Kenan Hall room 1111 to discuss that book along with his latest work, “The Tarball Chronicles.”

Tyler Loftis, a UNCW creative writing alumnus and former student of Gessner’s, expressed enthusiasm for the upcoming book and offered praise for Gessner’s “unconventional” teaching style.  Asked what he brings to UNCW’s creative writing department, he replied that rather than simply assigning a book list for the semester, he allows students to analyze a novel of their own choosing and “gives [students] advice on how to look into themselves and find the works that are in their hearts,” Loftis said.

While the presidential nod to “My Green Manifesto” has been big news on campus over the past couple of weeks, Gessner’s appearances this week will also focus on “The Tarball Chronicles,” a compilation of blog entries written for the Natural Resource Defense council about his time spent in the Gulf of Mexico following the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon oil disaster last summer.  Perhaps equally unconventional as his classroom presence is Gessner’s approach to the nonfiction novel, creating in “The Tarball Chronicles” something he describes on his website as “part nature book, part new journalism, part adventure story.”

Author of eight books as well as essays and works that have appeared in publications including The New York Times Magazine, The Boston Globe, and The Harvard Review, David Gessner is also founder of the national literary journal, Ecotone.  His works have been included among several Top 10 lists around the country in the last few years, and have earned him literary awards including a Pushcart Prize and the John Burroughs Award for Best Natural History Essay.

Students interested in reading either of David Gessner’s latest works can find copies of both available at Pomegranate Books, a locally owned bookstore located at the intersection of Kerr and Park Avenue. Gessner’s discussion Sept. 15 is free and open to the public.