Beyond the Human Realm with Gene Helfman

Beyond the Human Realm with Gene Helfman
Aug 30, 2022 07:00 PM Pacific Time (US and Canada)

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88327245765

Join us ONLINE  at 7 pm with the Port Townsend Public Library for an Author Talk with Gene Helfman. 

"Beyond the Human Realm" chronicles the life of Makai, a male orca captured in the North Atlantic and held in a marine park until he becomes a liability. Makai is slated for euthanasia but is rescued and rehabilitated by a whale biologist and others, including a runaway Indigenous teenager with Orca Clan roots. Together, they work to unite Makai with J Pod of the Southern Resident killer whales. The novel draws on concepts developed in movies such as Free Willy, The Cove, and Blackfish, as well as J35/Tahlequa’s 17-day tour of grief carrying her dead calf. The novel recently won the 2022 Best Indie Excellence Award for Animal Fiction and has achieved Finalist status in three other literary fiction contests.

Gene Helfman is an animal behaviorist turned conservation biologist. With a PhD in Ecology from Cornell University, Gene was on the faculty of the University of Georgia for thirty years, authoring four books on fish and marine conservation and dozens of related scientific papers. He spent much of his professional career underwater demonstrating that fish are smarter than conventionally thought. In an effort to get the conservation message to a larger audience, and recognizing that more people read fiction than non-fiction, he has written an eco-thriller novel about endangered killer whales, Beyond the Human Realm, that he will read from today. The novel won the 2022 National Indie Excellence Award for Animal Fiction and is a finalist in three other award competitions. Gene also recently finished another eco-thriller horror/comedy novel about the reprehensible practice of shark finning. Gene and his wife Dr. Judy Meyer, an aquatic ecologist, live on Lopez Island.