What's Up - Your guide to what's happening in Fayetteville, AR this week!
Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/1077408
LARA JO HIGHTOWER NWA Democrat-Gazette W hen writer and photojournalist Tom Clynes speaks to an audience Feb. 7 at the University of the Ozarks in Clarksville, he'll bring with him 20-plus years of exploration and adventure. He's written about his experiences in publications such as National Geographic, The New York Times, Nature, Newsweek, Scientific American and Popular Science. Clynes is also the author of two books — "Wild Planet" and "The Boy Who Played with Fusion." "We are thrilled to have someone with Tom's vast journalistic experience and travel adventures be a part of our Walton Arts & Ideas Series," says Larry Isch, director of public and media relations for the university. "The theme for this year's series is 'Synergy: When Arts and Science Collide,' and Tom's work as a writer and photographer covering the adventurous side of science fits the theme perfectly. He is a masterful storyteller through his words and photography." Clynes took time out of his busy schedule to answer these questions for What's Up! Q. What can people expect to see and hear at your upcoming event? A. Via stories and photos, I'll be bringing students along on assignment to some of the most intriguing and dramatic places I've reported from during two decades as a writer and photojournalist. We'll trek into the central African jungle with eco-mercenaries, and venture into the hot zone with Ebola doctors. We'll meet some of the people — explorers, conservationists, archaeologists, virus hunters, physicists — who have populated my articles, people who shaped their lives into extraordinary, world- changing adventures. We'll consider how they did it and why they did it — and what their experiences can tell us about sparking our own dreams into action. Q. When did you decide to add an expertise in photography to your skill in writing? A. I was lucky in that my father, who was a hobbyist photographer, handed down his old camera to me when I was 14 years old and taught me a few things about exposure. I took it from there, bringing my camera with me when I was vagabonding around the world in my 20s and later when I was building my journalism career. The two skills are complementary, but trying to do both simultaneously can be incredibly nerve-wracking. At root they're both forms of storytelling, but a photographer needs to approach reporting in a very different way than a writer does. I'll talk about that during my presentation. Q. Were you ever on an adventure that ended up terrifying you? A. A few years ago I reported on the Ebola epidemic in northern Uganda. I had convinced myself that the doctors and virus hunters working there knew how to protect themselves, and that I'd be safe if I followed their lead. Unfortunately I would come to discover — in a most horrifying way — just how naive my assumptions were. 10 WHAT'S UP! FEBRUARY 3-9, 2019 Three Minutes, Three Questions Photojournalist Tom Clynes Courtesy Photo Tom Clynes' magazine stories often appear in Houghton Mifflin's Best Of series of magazine-writing anthologies. 3X3 FAQ Tom Clynes WHEN — 7 p.m. Feb. 7 WHERE — Rogers Conference Center, University of the Ozarks, 415 N. College Ave. in Clarksville COST — Free INFO — 979-1433 BONUS — There will be a Q and A after the presentation and, says Clynes, "I'll also stick around afterward to chat with students who are interested in exploring a career in journalism or other forms of storytelling."