coming up

Wednesday, July 8, 10-11:30am (MST, same as Pacific Time)

Craig Childs, Tracing Time: Seasons of Rock Art on the Colorado Plateau

This month, embark on a journey into the deep history of our region as we welcome acclaimed author, naturalist, and desert explorer Craig Childs to discuss his intriguing book, Tracing Time: Seasons of Rock Art on the Colorado Plateau.

In Tracing Time, Craig Childs walks us into the ancient, wind-carved canyons of the Southwest, interpreting the profound messages left behind on stone. This book is a masterclass in reading the landscape, focusing on the petroglyphs and pictographs that act as living maps of history, ritual, and human presence on the Colorado Plateau. Rather than treating these images as static relics of the past, Childs approaches them as a dynamic, unfolding dialogue across centuries, examining how they connect us intimately to the seasons, the animals, and the ancestors of the desert borderlands.

Childs’ work has been widely celebrated for its rare blend of rigorous field science, deep cultural respect, and breathtakingly poetic prose. Tracing Time stands as a powerful testament to the enduring relationship between people and the arid expanses they call home. By blending personal narrative, archaeology, and indigenous perspectives, the book reveals the Southwest not just as a geographical space, but as a storied repository of memory and sacred art.

Craig Childs has published more than a dozen books on nature, science, and desert wilderness. He is a regular commentator for National Public Radio and his articles have appeared in The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and Atlantic Monthly. Known for his adventurous spirit, Craig spends a large portion of his year traveling on foot through the gashes and canyons of the American West, mapping the intersection of ancient history and the modern soul.

"As refreshing as a desert storm, Tracing Time is a welcome invitation into the continuities and conundrums of time." — Kathleen Dean Moore, author of Earth's Wild Music

"Childs brings refreshing humility . . . Readers might find here, along with a soul-saving historical perspective, a place of calm amid our noise." — Booklist

We encourage you to pick up a copy of Tracing Time at your local independent bookstore or library and dive into its pages before our gathering. As usual, in a week or so we’ll send out a list of resources providing additional materials to aid your preparation for our session. This will include podcasts, interviews, articles, poems … whatever seems to best summarize and shed light on this fascinating theme.  And remember… send in your questions to add to mine, in interviewing Craig!

BLFC Archive

View the rest of the BLFC archive on Vimeo:

2025

• Joseph Mathew-Varghese, “The Long Walk of Carlos Guerrero” (December 10, 2025)

• Elizabeth Shakman Hurd, “Heaven Has a Wall: Religion, Borders, and the Global United States (November 12, 2025)

• Reyna Grande, “The Distance Between Us” (September 10, 2025)

• Tim Z. Hernandez, author of “All They Will Call You” (August 13, 2025)

• David Damian Figueroa & Gale Hall, authors of “El Oz” and “Lili’s Quilt” (July 9, 2025)

• Ken Lamberton, author of “Dry River: Stories of Life, Death, and Redemption on the Santa Cruz” (June 12, 2025)

• Barbara Sostaita, author of “Sanctuary Everywhere” (April 9, 2025)

• Mike Wilson and José Antonio Lucero, authors of “What Side Are You On? A Tohono O'odham Life Across Borders” (February 12, 2025)

• Gary Paul Nabhan, author of “Against the American Grain” (January 8, 2025)

2024

• Melani Martinez, author of “The Molino: A Memoir” (December 11, 2024)

• Sarah Towle, author of “Crossing the Line: Finding America in the Borderlands” (October 9, 2024)

• Jared Orsi, author of "Recovering the Lost History and Culture of Quitobaquito" (September 11, 2024)

• Marie Arana, author of “Latinoland: A Portrait of America’s Largest and Least Understood Minority” (August 14, 2024)

• Dora Rodriguez, author of “On Migration and Amnesty” (July 10, 2024)

• “Coronado: the New Evidence”, produced by Frances Causey and featuring Dr. Deni Seymour (June 12, 2024)

• Renata Golden, author of “Mountain Time: A Field Guide to Astonishment” (May 8, 2024)

• Héctor Tobar, author of “Our Migrant Souls: A Meditation on Race and the Meanings and Myths of ‘Latino’” (April 10, 2024)

• John B Washington, author of “The Case for Open Borders” (February 14, 2024)

• Krista Schlyer, author of “Continental Divide: Wildlife, People, and the Border Wall” (January 10, 2024)

2023

• Henry Barajas, “La Voz de M.A.Y.O.: Tato Rambo” (December 13, 2023)

• Alejandra Oliva, “Rivermouth: A Chronicle of Language, Faith, and Migration” (November 8, 2023)

• Seth Schermerhorn, Bernard Siquieros, Regina Siquieros, “Pilgrimage to Magdalena” (October 11, 2023)

• Tom Zoellner, “Rim to River: Looking Into the Heart of Arizona” (August 9, 2023)

• Tom Sheridan, “Landscapes of Fraud: Mission Tumacacori, the Baca Float, and the Betrayal of the O’odham” (July 12, 2023)

• Andrew Selee, “Vanishing Frontiers: The Forces Driving Mexico and the United States Together” (June 14, 2023)

• Lydia Otero, “In the Shadow of the Freeway: Growing Up Brown and Queer” (May 10, 2023)

• Luis Alberto Urrea, “The Hummingbird’s Daughter,” “Into the Beautiful North,” and “The Devil’s Highway” (April 12, 2023)

• Gary Paul Nabhan, “The Nature of Desert Nature” (February 8, 2023)

• Greg Grandin, “End of the Myth: From the Frontier to the Border Wall in the Mind of America” (January 11, 2023)

2022

• Bill Steen, “Feels Like Home: A Song for the Sonora Borderlands” by Linda Ronstadt with Lawrence Downs (December 14, 2022)

• Reyna Grande and Sonia Guiñansaca, “Somewhere We Are Human: Authentic Voices on Migration, Survival, and New Beginnings” (November 9, 2022)

• Jenn Budd, “Against the Wall: My Journey from Border Patrol Agent to Immigrant Rights Activist” (October 12, 2022)

• Dr. Toni Munoz-Hunt discusses the topic of Bordercanos (August 10, 2022)

• Athena Swentzell Steen discusses the topic of Southwest Desert-Adapted Architecture (July 13, 2022)

• Daniel Cooper Alarcon discusses the topic of the history and mythology of Aztlan (June 8, 2022)

• Javier Zamora, “Unaccompanied” and “Solito” (May 11, 2022)

• Scott Buchanan discusses the topic of children’s and youth literature in the borderlands (April 13, 2022)

• Todd Miller, “Build Bridges, Not Walls: A Journey to a World Without Borders” (February 9, 2022)

• Wynne Brown, “The Forgotten Botanist: Sara Plummer Lemmon’s Life of Science and Art” (January 12, 2022)

2021

• Jeff Babson, Sky Island Tours (November 11, 2022)

• Roxanne Swentzell and Patricia Perea, “The Pueblo Food Experience Cookbook: Whole Foods of our Ancestors” (October 13, 2021)

• Gary Paul Nabhan, “Food from the Radical Center: Healing Our Land and Communities” (September 8, 2021)

• Alberto Rios, “The Good Map of All Things” (July 14, 2021)

• David Owens, “Where the Water Goes” and Craig Childs, “The Secret Knowledge of Water” (June 9, 2021)

• Janya Burn, “Cloak and Jaguar: Following a Cat from Desert to Courtroom” (April 14, 2021)

• Robert C. West, “Sonora: Its Geographical Personality,” Thomas E. Sheridan, “Where the Dove Calls,” Padre Kino documentary, “Favores Celestiales” (March 10, 2021)

• Rita and Francisco Cantu, “The Line Becomes a River” (January 13, 2021)

2020

• Jeffrey Schulze, “Are We Not Foreigners Here? Nationalism in the US-Mexico Borderlands” and film, “Sonora” (November 11, 2020)

• Lawrence Taylor, “Tales from the Desert Borderland” and film, “El Mar La Mar” (October 14, 2020)

• Rosayra Pablo Cruz and Julie S. Collazo, “The Book of Rosy: A Mother’s Story of Separation at the Border” and film, “Human Flow” (September 9, 2020)

• César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández, “Migration to Prison: America’s Obsession with Locking Up Immigrants” (August 12, 2020)

• Film, “Sin Nombre” (July 8, 2020)