Terry Tempest Williams

In these new essays, Williams explores the concept of erosion: of the land, of the self, of belief, of fear. She wrangles with the paradox of desert lands and the truth of erosion: What is weathered, worn, and whittled away through wind, water, and time is as powerful as what remains.

"A personal, lyrical, and idiosyncratic ode to our national parks"-- "For years, America's national parks have provided public breathing spaces in a world in which such spaces are steadily disappearing, which is why close to 300 million people visit the parks each year. Now, to honor the centennial of the National Park Service, Terry Tempest Williams, the author of the beloved memoir When Women Were Birds, returns with The Hour of Land, a literary...

When artist Tom Curry first moved to Maine, his house overlooked a small, uninhabited island in Eggemoggin Reach. One day, while rowing across to the island, his boyhood fear of water came crashing in on him. So he decided to explore his fear head-on, and began painting the island "as a way to delve into my own darkness and seek a way back to the surface." That series of paintings, capturing the island in all lights, weathers, and moods, forms the...

Williams tells the story of her initiation by the living land when she was 7 years old. While taking a school trip she ended up alone, in the dark, in Mount Timpanogos Cave. For a brief but powerful moment she felt the beating heart of the mountain. She says, "For the rest of my life I've been trying to retrieve that sacred space I felt inside that mountain alone. I have been searching for that moment when you're part of something so old, so deep,...

Terry takes us on a whirlwind tour of what it means to give voice to our own authenticity. It requires deep listening and fertile silences. She encourages us to speak "Mother Tongue" - speaking from the belly rather than the mind. She laments that in Western culture "the language of economics has power, the language of the law has power, the language of science has power. But an intelligence of the heart, an emotional intelligence, or a poetic sensibility,...

Environmental politics becomes a matter of sensual passion rather than political correctness in this rich, colorful mosaic of thoughts on wildness, landscape, animals, and humans. It sparkles with gems of insight mined from Williams' own profound sense of belonging in nature and includes the voice of the late Edward Abbey, maverick environmentalist and friend of hers.

Examines over a dozen different types of snow and snowy conditions through the vocabulary of the Inuit people of Alaska. Discusses the physical properties and formation of the snow and how it affects the plants, animals, and people of the Arctic.

"Featuring some of America's greatest writers and poets, this landmark anthology is a one-of-a-kind field guide to the American literary imagination. Americans have always been fascinated by birds and from the beginning American writers have captured this keen interest in a variety of genres: poems, journals, memoirs, short stories, essays, and travel accounts. Here literature professor and avid birder Andrew Rubenfeld, in collaboration with acclaimed...