Savoy, Lauret
Lauret Savoy
Lauret Savoy is a writer, teacher, photographer, and pilot. A woman of multiracial heritage—African American, Euro-American, and Native American, she explores the complex intersections of natural and cultural histories to understand the American land’s origins and the stories we tell about ourselves. She has authored several books, most recently, Trace: Memory, History, Race, and the American Landscape. It was a finalist for PEN American and more honors. Savoy is a recipient of Mount Holyoke College’s Distinguished Teaching Award. She received an Andrew Carnegie Fellowship. Savoy also served as the director of Mount Holyoke’s Miller Worley Center for the Environment and is on the board of staff of the National Parks Conservation Association.
“For me, my writing in Trace is a form of doing geology: that is, understanding Earth and our place on it.” - Lauret Savoy, 2021
Savoy, Lauret. 2018. The Remembered Past in a Changing World. The Georgia Review, 72(3), 800-807.
Savoy, Lauret. 2015. Trace: Memory, history, race, and the American landscape. Catapult. Savoy, Lauret E. 2008. To See the Whole: A Future of Environmental Writing. Ecotone, 3(2), 176-178.
Savoy, Lauret E., Moores E.M., Moores, J.E., 2006. Bedrock: Writers on the wonders of geology. Trinity University Press.
Savoy, Lauret E. and Deming A.H. 2002. The colors of nature: Culture, identity, and the natural world. Milkweed Editions
Lauret Savoy was born in Berkeley, CA, to a writer, Willard Savoy, and a nurse, Vivian Savoy. In 1968, their family moved to Washington, DC. In an interview with Buzz Feed News, Lauren told the interviewer, Kathryn Aalto: “We arrived in time to experience the riots. That was when I, as a small child, learned about racism. I was spat upon and hated. I needed to learn who I was then. That initial learning began in a struggle to answer or come to terms with questions that started to haunt me about origins, about who I was and who we were, and what the American land was” (Aalto, 2020).
Savoy completed a Bachelor of Arts in Geology from Princeton University in 1981. She went to the University of California Santa Cruz and earned her Master of Science degree in Geological and Earth Sciences in 1983. Furthering her interest in geology, she graduated with her doctorate in Geosciences at Syracuse University in 1990.
Savoy started as an associate professor of geology at Mount Holyoke College in 1996. As a geologist, her study focused on the Devonian and Carboniferous Strata of the Canadian Cordillera and southern Canadian Rocky Mountains. She considers fossil hunting and historical inquiry versions of the same pursuit.
In 2004, she became an environmental studies and geology professor at Mount Holyoke College. Her background in geology helps her see patterns, fragments, and gaps as she researches her meandering history in the context of the history of the United States.
She was the Director of Miller Worley Center for the Environment at Mount Holyoke College from 2005 to 2007. In 2017, she was named David B. Truman Professor of Environmental Studies & Geology and an Andrew Carnegie Fellow.
Lauret was a Smithsonian Institution and Yale University fellow. She is a Fellow of the Geological Society of America. Her life and work draw from her need to put fragmented pasts in the present. Savoy writes about the damage and fragmentation of the world and seeks to find a sense of home and comfort in the complex cultural and natural histories we live in.
Lauret’s most recent book, Trace: Memory, History, Race, and the American Landscape (2015), blends memoir, history, and landscape to uncover hidden legacies. She used stories from her family’s history as a lens to understand U.S. history better. Likewise, she tries to understand her past better through the lens of nature and landscape. The book inspires readers to broaden their perspectives on race, gender, and nature. The book has received much recognition and awards. It won the 2016 American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation. It also won the ASLE Creative Writing Award in 2017 and appeared on the Orion Book Award Shortlist. It was also a finalist for Phillis Wheatley Book Award and a PEN American Book Award. Finally, the Orion Book Award and the William Saroyan International Prize for Writing both shortlisted Trace: Memory, History, Race, and the American Landscape.
Savoy also wrote The Colors of Nature: Culture, Identity, and the Natural World and Bedrock: Writers on the Wonders of Geology. She co-wrote Living with the Changing California Coast with Gary Griggs and Kiki Patsch. “Bedrock” was named to the “Five Best” science books on the Wall Street Journal list. The Colors of Nature is an essay collection that significantly adds diversity to the often predominately white nature writing. Lauret and coeditor Alison Deming discuss several issues, including environmental racism and colonization of the “New World.”
Christian Science Monitor, the Georgia Review, Travel & Leisure, Gettysburg Review, Huffington Post, ArtForum, and Orion magazine have published Savoy’s writings. Her work also appears in books, including “Moral Ground: Ethical Action for a Planet in Peril.”
Aalto, Kathryn. 2020. 11 Women Who Have Changed The Way We See The Natural World. Buzz Feed News. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/kathrynaalto/best-nature-books-writ…
Savoy, Lauret. (n.d.). Home [https://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/educational-magazines/savoy-lauret-e]. Enclyclopedia.com. Retrieved January 31, 2023.
Savoy, Lauret. (n.d.). Home [https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauret-savoy-b42b9b98/]. LinkedIn. Retrieved January 31, 2023, from https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauret-savoy-b42b9b98/.