'Breaking out of established patterns'

 

“Creativity involvesbreaking out of established patterns in order to look at things in a differentway.”― Terry Tempest Williams Born in California on this date in 1955, author, conservationist, and activist Williams has focused many of herwritings on the American West.  Her work ranges from issuesof ecology and wilderness preservation to women's health.  Currently serving as Writer-in-Residence at the Harvard Divinity School,       she is recipient of the Distinguished Achievement Awardfrom the Western American Literature Association and the Wallace Stegner Awardfrom the Center of the American West at CU-Boulder.     To read one of her great pieces pick up a copy of Refuge: An Unnatural History ofFamily and Place, a masterpiece of interweaving memoir and natural history. 
“Writingis also about a life engaged. And so, for me, community work, working in theschools or with grassroots conservation organizations is another criticalcomponent of my life as a writer . . . Writing isdaring to feel what nurtures and breaks our hearts. Bearing witness is its ownform of advocacy. It is a dance with pain and beauty.”