Terry Tempest Williams

Author profile

born

September 05, 1955 in Corona, California, The United States

gender

female

website

http://www.coyoteclan.com/

genre

Outdoors & Nature, Philosophy, Religion & Spirituality

About this author

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Terry Tempest Williams is an American author, conservationist and activist. Williams’ writing is rooted in the American West and has been significantly influenced by the arid landscape of her native Utah in which she was raised. Her work ranges from issues of ecology and wilderness preservation, to women's health, to exploring our relationship to culture and nature.

She has testified before Congress on women’s health, committed acts of civil disobedience in the years 1987 - 1992 in protest against nuclear testing in the Nevada Desert, and again, in March, 2003 in Washington, D.C., with Code Pink, against the Iraq War. She has been a guest at the White House, has camped in the remote regions of the Utah and Alaska wildernesses and worked as "...more Terry Tempest Williams is an American author, conservationist and activist. Williams’ writing is rooted in the American West and has been significantly influenced by the arid landscape of her native Utah in which she was raised. Her work ranges from issues of ecology and wilderness preservation, to women's health, to exploring our relationship to culture and nature.

She has testified before Congress on women’s health, committed acts of civil disobedience in the years 1987 - 1992 in protest against nuclear testing in the Nevada Desert, and again, in March, 2003 in Washington, D.C., with Code Pink, against the Iraq War. She has been a guest at the White House, has camped in the remote regions of the Utah and Alaska wildernesses and worked as "a barefoot artist" in Rwanda.

Williams is the author of Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place; An Unspoken Hunger: Stories from the Field; Desert Quartet; Leap; Red: Patience and Passion in the Desert; and The Open Space of Democracy. Her book Finding Beauty in a Broken World was published in 2008 by Pantheon Books.

In 2006, Williams received the Robert Marshall Award from The Wilderness Society, their highest honor given to an American citizen. She also received the Distinguished Achievement Award from the Western American Literature Association and the Wallace Stegner Award given by The Center for the American West. She is the recipient of a Lannan Literary Award for Nonfictionand a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship in creative nonfiction. Williams was featured in Ken Burns' PBS series The National Parks: America's Best Idea (2009). In 2011, she received the 18th International Peace Award given by the Community of Christ Church.

Williams is currently the Annie Clark Tanner Scholar in Environmental Humanities at the University of Utah and a columnist for the magazine The Progressive. She has been a Montgomery Fellow at Dartmouth College where she continues to teach. She divides her time between Wilson, Wyoming and Castle Valley, Utah, where her husband Brooke is field coordinator for the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance.

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Books by Terry Tempest Williams

Average rating: 4.02 · 5,000 ratings · 716 reviews · 41 distinct works

	Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place 4.08 avg rating — 2,620 ratings — published 1992	My rating:
	An Unspoken Hunger: Stories from the Field 4.02 avg rating — 370 ratings — published 1994 — 3 editions	My rating:
	Red: Passion and Patience in the Desert 3.90 avg rating — 374 ratings — published 2001 — 4 editions	My rating:
	Finding Beauty in a Broken World 3.77 avg rating — 313 ratings — published 2008 — 5 editions	My rating:
	Leap 3.69 avg rating — 188 ratings — published 2000 — 2 editions	My rating:
	The Open Space of Democracy by Terry Tempest Williams, Mary Frank (Illustrator) 4.16 avg rating — 160 ratings — published 2004 — 3 editions	My rating:
	Desert Quartet: An Erotic Landscape by Terry Tempest Williams, Mary Frank (Illustrator) 4.09 avg rating — 98 ratings — published 1995	My rating:
	When Women Were Birds: Fifty-four Variations on Voice 4.35 avg rating — 75 ratings — published 2012 — 2 editions	My rating:
	Pieces of White Shell 3.74 avg rating — 88 ratings — published 1984 — 2 editions	My rating:
	Coyote's Canyon by Terry Tempest Williams, John Telford 4.00 avg rating — 54 ratings — published 1989 — 3 editions	My rating:

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Upcoming Events

Terry Tempest Williams at University of Utah
Author appearance, June 12, 2012 10:30AM
University of Utah School of Medicine, 30 N 1900 East, Salt Lake City, UT, US
http://kingsenglish.indiebound.com/event/terry-tempest-williams-whe...

Terry Tempest Williams reading from When Women Were Birds.

Terry Tempest Williams at Boulder Bookstore
Author appearance, June 13, 2012 07:30PM — 2 people invited
Boulder Bookstore, 1107 Pearl Street, Boulder, CO, US
http://boulderbookstore.indiebound.com/

Terry Tempest Williams reading from When Women Were Birds.

Terry Tempest Williams at Tattered Cover
Author appearance, June 14, 2012 07:30PM — 2 people invited
Tattered Cover, 1628 16th Street, Denver, CO, US
http://www.tatteredcover.com/

Terry Tempest Williams reading from When Women Were Birds.

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Quotes by Terry Tempest Williams

“This is my living faith, an active faith, a faith of verbs: to question, explore, experiment, experience, walk, run, dance, play, eat, love, learn, dare, taste, touch, smell, listen, speak, write, read, draw, provoke, emote, scream, sin, repent, cry, kneel, pray, bow, rise, stand, look, laugh, cajole, create, confront, confound, walk back, walk forward, circle, hide, and seek.”
― Terry Tempest Williams, Leap

tags: belief , faith , inspiration

197 people liked it

“Faith is not about finding meaning in the world, there may be no such thing -- faith is the belief in our capacity to create meaningful lives.”
― Terry Tempest Williams, Leap

tags: faith , inspiration , meaning

29 people liked it

“The world is holy. We are holy. All life is holy. Daily prayers are delivered on the lips of breaking waves, the whisperings of grasses, the shimmering of leaves.”
― Terry Tempest Williams

18 people liked it

See all Terry Tempest Williams's quotes »

Topics Mentioning This Author

topics	posts	views	last activity
The Seasonal Read...: Spring Challenge 2011 Completed Tasks (DO NOT DELETE ANY POSTS)	2898	731	May 31, 2011 09:01pm
Around the World ...: Utah	3	16	Nov 04, 2011 05:38am
The Next Best Boo...: Author Alphabet	3431	2600	May 31, 2012 04:45pm

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Terry Tempest Williams

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Terry's Fans (54)

Terry Tempest Williams

Author profile

combine editionsBooks by Terry Tempest Williams

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Quotes by Terry Tempest Williams

Topics Mentioning This Author

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combine editions
Books by Terry Tempest Williams