Local Author Reading with Mark Sommer

Cherish: Love in a Season of Loss is a deeply human story about facing loss, finding hope, and beginning again. It explores the challenges and discoveries that come with major life changes. When we step away from our phones and computers, we are reminded of how much we need one another. We learn to work together, build stronger connections, and value the unique gifts each person brings to our shared lives. Mark Sommer has lived in Humboldt County for fifty years. For thirty of those years, he and his wife built and cared for a self-reliant homestead in the backcountry, seven miles from the nearest power lines. They grew much of their own food, raised dairy goats and ducks for milk and eggs, and kept bees for honey. They made their own electricity using early solar panels and a water wheel they designed and built themselves. For the past thirty years, Mark and his family have lived in a home they built overlooking the ocean in Westhaven. Mark also founded and led a nonprofit media organization in Arcata. The organization helped hundreds of new voices reach listeners through commercial, public, and community radio. He later created and hosted "A World of Possibilities", a weekly, hour-long radio program shared across the country. The show featured people working to create positive change and won six international awards, including recognition from the United Nations. For twenty years, Mark served as the U.S. correspondent for InterPress Service, a news agency based in Rome. His articles were shared around the world in several languages. Now retired, Mark continues to write. He and his daughter are publishing a series of memoirs through their imprint, "Hearts Broken Open".