Jason Dove Mark has spent his career asking readers to pay closer attention to the earth, first as editor-in-chief of Sierra Magazine and editor of Earth Island Journal, and now as the author of Satellites in the High Country: Searching for the Wild in the Age of Man. At the Salt Lake Book Festival, he brings his newest book, The Earth Said Remember Me: How to Revive Our Memories and Restore the Planet (July 2026), an inspiring manifesto for anyone who has caught themselves getting used to a warmer, quieter, more depleted world.

Dove Mark calls this “shifting baseline syndrome” — our tendency to normalize loss one summer at a time — and pushes back with four deceptively simple rules: go outside, bear witness, make a record, pass it on. Drawing on citizen scientists, birdwatchers, mountain climbers, and fishermen he’s met from the mountains of California to the lakes of Wisconsin, he makes the case that really remembering the earth is one of the most practical tools we have for protecting it. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, and The Atlantic.

He lives in the Pacific Northwest. Join him on the Kiln Stage for a conversation on ecological memory, everyday conservation, and what it looks like to actually pay attention.