Texas writers Lynda Rutledge and S. Kirk Walsh come together in this panel to discuss their new novels, both inspired by true stories of animal-human connection amid political unrest. Rutledge’s West with Giraffes takes place in 1938, following Woodrow Wilson Nickel’s quest to deliver the two first giraffes to the San Diego Zoo. Walsh’s The Elephant of Belfast is set three years later, as a young woman zookeeper finds herself protecting a young elephant during the Luftwaffe’s blitz of Belfast in 1941.

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Lynda Rutledge, S. Kirk Walsh, West with Giraffes, The Elephant of Belfast