The spotlight will soon fall on the creative works of two UC Davis staff members:

Cody Sheehy’s documentary film on Mongolia, featuring UC Davis scientists and musicians, will air on select PBS stations nationwide on June 15.

KQED World will broadcast Voices of Mongolia at 9 a.m. and noon.

Most people image Mongolia as a vast unspoiled landscape full of wildlife and nomadic herders, untouched by the modern world, according to writer-producer Sheehy. But that idyllic world has been turned upside in recent years by economic growth, especially the mining industry, and climate change, he said.

Sheehy is a program representative in the Department of Plant Sciences and also works as an associate producer for Sacramento’s PBS television affiliate, KVIE. 

Among the interview subjects are Cooperative Extension specialists Mel George and Ken Tate, and UC Davis professors Ed DePeters and Frank Mitloehner of animal science. Original music by graduate students and the Davis Summer Symphony is also included.

More information on Voices of Mongolia.

Brenda Nakamoto is scheduled to give four readings in Davis and Sacramento on her new book, Peach Farmer’s Daughter (Roan Press, 2011). The dates and locations are:

• June 18—7:30 p.m., Avid Reader, 617 Second St., Davis.
• June 24—6-8 p.m., Launch Party, ThinkHouse Collective, 1726 11th St., Sacramento.
• July 12—Noon-1 p.m., UC Davis Bookstore.
• July 16—4:30-5:30 p.m., Sacramento Natural Foods Co-op, 1900 Alhambra Boulevard, Sacramento.

This is the first book for Nakamoto, a 22-year campus employee and executive assistant in the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences Dean’s Office. In Peach Farmer’s Daughter, she writes about her childhood as a sansei (third-generation Japanese-American) growing up on a peach farm in Gridley. The collection of stories focus on family, the land, farming and the ethnic melting pot of the Central Valley.

Nakamoto has participated in local writing workshops and taken classes in the UC Davis Extension writing program. She penned Peach Farmer’s Daughter because she “really missed the farming life.” As a mother of two young children and caregiver for her elderly father, the Davis resident felt drawn in recent years to her pastoral past.

“It was a time of both hope and regret,” she said about her writing process. “Writing about peaches and family helped me, and it helped my dad, too, because he liked listening to drafts of my stories.”

Peach Farmer’s Daughter is available at the UC Davis Bookstore.