Erika Bears
Writer, journalist, and public speaker Andrew Moore returns to town for a reading at New Dominion Bookshop, followed by a conversation with local writer and cultural landscape historian Nell Boeschenstein Yager. Moore’s new book, The Beasts of the East: The Fall and Rise of America’s Eastern Wilderness, about reintroducing large animals to the eastern United States—including elk in western Virginia and the endangered red wolf in northeast North Carolina adjacent to Virginia’s Great Dismal Swamp—published earlier this month. Ahead of his visit, we put Moore in The HotSeat.
Name: Andrew Moore
Age: 41
Pronouns: He/him
Hometown: I grew up in Lake Wales, Florida, but the Northside of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, has been my home for the past 17 years.
Job(s): Writer
What’s something about your job that people would be surprised to learn? Although my new book is about wildlife and the outdoors, I would guess that 95 percent of the work is spent indoors at a desk.
Why is it important to support environmental journalism? I think environmental journalism has a unique responsibility: Although human societies depend upon the health of functioning ecosystems, we are also capable of inflicting great harm upon the natural world, and when that is taken to the extreme, it can result in not just damaged natural areas, but eventually widespread local extinctions. Plants and animals don’t have any way to advocate for themselves—and so if we’re not telling stories about our wondrous and diverse world, we risk losing our connection to wildlife, and losing species, forever.
How does the progression of time factor into your writing? How are past and present represented in your work? Most of our modern landscapes in the East are the result of human choices, for better and for worse: We are living in natural worlds that were set on a specific course by human hands decades and centuries ago. And so it’s like Faulkner said, “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”
What are you working on right now? I’ve been investigating the existence of a globally rare hawthorn (Crataegus pennsylvanica), the Pennsylvania hawthorn, that occurs in relative abundance in the city of Pittsburgh. And I’m working on a natural history of a place much, much closer to home.
Best advice you ever got: Best (writing) advice I ever got came from a friend when I was starting out as a freelance writer in Miami, Florida. I was traveling to investigate some story I have since forgotten, but the friend told me to go there, to this place, and to not worry if I didn’t find what I was originally looking for. Even if you don’t find the specific thing, you will have a story—tell it.
Best part of visiting here: My standout memory of Charlottesville is of the open-air, Saturday farmers’ market—it’s got to be one of the best markets in the country!
If you could be reincarnated as a person or thing, what would you be? I recently watched a video of Victor Wembanyama, the San Antonio Spurs center who is at least 7’4″, where he was asked if he could talk to his 10-year-old self, what would he say? “Nothing,” he said. “I wouldn’t talk to him because I don’t want to change, in any way, the way things went.” I feel a similar way about this question: I’m not sure I’d want to live the life of any other person. That said, I suppose it would be really cool to fly like a peregrine falcon, run like a cheetah … or even dunk a basketball like Victor Wembanyama.
Are there any superstitions you abide by? Growing up in Florida, I learned to eat black-eyed peas on New Year’s Day, and that it was bad luck to do laundry on January 1—so I make sure I get my laundry done in December … and then eat my peas!
Favorite movie: I can’t pick an all-time favorite, but the movie I have most recommended over the past decade is Bacurau, written and directed by Kleber Mendonça Filho and Juliano Dornelles.
Favorite book: Again, too hard to pick a favorite, but when I first read Annie Dillard’s Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, I wondered why my friends and teachers hadn’t already sat me down and instructed me to read this masterpiece immediately. Dillard’s curiosity, her observational powers, and her gift with language, is unmatched.
Go-to karaoke song: “Int’l Players Anthem (I Choose You)” by UGK or “Surfin’ Bird” by The Trashmen.
What’s your comfort food/meal? I like comfort, and I like food, and I’ll take all I can get of both. But I think I’m happiest with a plate of sweet plantains, garlic-stuffed mofongo, and no matter the time of day, café con leche.
Subject that causes you to rant: How Erie, Pennsylvania, is America’s best beach town.
Hottest take/most unpopular opinion: That Erie, Pennsylvania, is America’s best beach town!
