On Wednesday September 26, 2007, environmental writer and amateur swimmer Akiko Busch, author of Nine Ways to Cross A River, will speak about her personal experiences with notable American rivers and the dynamics of creating relationships with natural waterways.

Combining a journalist’s eye, a naturalist’s passion, and a swimmer’s stamina, Akiko visits rivers, meets with their protectors, and documents ongoing threats to their existence.

Busch writes, “Intimacy with the river, like other kinds of intimacy, is laced with ambiguity, with questions of ownership elusive and variable. And it becomes an easy thing to imagine yourself a particle in the river’s continuity.”

The Salt Lake City lecture is the last event in a series of lectures, workshops, and community swims throughout the Great Salt Lake watershed region featuring Akiko Busch as part of Great Salt Lakekeeper’s Swimmable Waters Campaign. Busch hopes, through her public swims and lectures, to immerse others in grassroots efforts to promote swimmable waterways locally and across the nation.

Akiko Busch’s lecture will be broadcast live at 7:00pm on KCPW Public Radio (88.3FM, 105.3FM, 1010AM).

On A Clear Day, a film about swimming across the English Channel, will precede the lecture at 4:00pm.

Akiko will sign copies of her new publication, Nine Ways To Cross A River, available for sale at the event.