About this Event
You might know longtime journalist Earl Swift from his wonderful book Chesapeake Requiem, one of the bestselling books in the Regional section of our bookshop. Now, Earl Swift returns with a poignant and thoughtful new volume on the nature of risk and the risks of nature: Up on Cove Mountain.
Join us at The Ivy as Earl Swift and fellow journalist Dan Rodricks, discuss the heart of this book, which chronicles Swift's 2024 trek through the Appalachian Trail - and reckons with a horrible fact: Early in his odyssey, Swift spent time with a couple of other southbounders, who were friendly, capable, and doing everything right, but who were nonetheless murdered weeks later at a mountaintop campsite in Pennsylvania--a fit of violence that the killer never explained.
As he traces his return to the trail-- and to this memory-- half a lifetime later, he invites us to join him in contemplation and commemoration.
Order UP ON COVE MOUNTAIN here!
Longtime journalist Earl Swift is the author of ten critically acclaimed books and hundreds of major features for newspapers and magazines. His latest book, Up on Cove Mountain, is the product of his two end-to-end hikes on the Appalachian Trail, thirty-four years apart. While chasing stories over a nearly fifty-year career, Swift has also camped for weeks in the Laotian jungle, excavated a crashed World War II bomber in Papua New Guinea, made numerous tailhook landings on aircraft carriers, and waded alongside six-foot catfish in the sewers of St. Louis. He was a Fulbright fellow to New Zealand in 1994, and spent ten years as a Virginia Humanities fellow at the University of Virginia. He lives in the Blue Ridge mountains west of Charlottesville.
Three times a week from January 1979 until January 2025, Dan Rodricks wrote a column on a sprawling range of topics for The Baltimore Sun. At 46 consecutive years, it was believed to be the longest-running local column in the U.S. Before resigning from The Sun in January 2025, he had written more than 6,600 columns.
In addition to the column, Dan was for many years a local radio and television host, and he was the creator and host of The Sun’s first podcast, Roughly Speaking.
He is the author of three books, including “Father's Day Creek: Fly Fishing, Fatherhood and The Last Best Place on Earth” (Apprentice House 2019).
In recent years, Dan found his way into writing for the stage. His first play, “Baltimore, You Have No Idea,” has had three runs to sell-out audiences at the Baltimore Museum of Art’s Meyerhoff Auditorium. A second play, “Baltimore Docket,” premiered in February 2024, also to sell-out audiences. Both plays are based on Dan’s work as a reporter and columnist for The Sun. His third play, “No Mean City: Baltimore 1966,” will have its premier run at the BMA in March 2026.
Event venue & nearby stays
The Ivy Bookshop - Back Patio, 5928 Falls Road, Baltimore, United States
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