Arts & Lectures
2001-2002 Season Lecture Series News Release
For Immediate Release

January 22, 2002
Contact: George Yatchisin
(805) 893-3494
e-mail: yatchisin-g@sa.ucsb.edu

Celebrated nature writer Terry Tempest Williams to read at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History

Summary Facts:

Terry Tempest Williams, writer, naturalist and crusader for protection of the nation’s wilderness, will read from her current work and the recently published Red: Passion and Patience in the Desert on Wednesday, February 27 at 7:30 pm at the SB Museum of Natural History, 2559 Puesta del Sol Road, Santa Barbara.

Williams is perhaps best known for the book Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place (1991), which seamlessly entwines the story of the women of her family fighting cancer because of radioactive fallout from nuclear tests with the fate of birds and their imperiled habitats at Utah’s Great Salt Lake. Novelist and poet Jim Harrison states, “Refuge is an almost unbearably intense and skillful essay on mortality, our own and that of the creature world. It is isolated from nearly all others of the genre by Ms. Williams’ ‘greatness of soul’—there is no other way to express the dense beauty and grace of this book.”

Williams’ writing explores the wonder and mystery of the American Southwest, asking important questions about spirituality, imagination and soul. Other titles by Williams include Desert Quartet: An Erotic Landscape, Pieces of White Shell: A Journey to Navajoland, Coyote’s Canyon and Unspoken Hunger. Just published in paperback, her book Leap: A Traveler in the Garden of Delights is an unusual mix of memoir and art history essay centered on the paintings of Hieronymus Bosch.

The Utne Reader named her one of its “Utne 100 visionaries,” claiming she is “a person who could change your life.” Beyond the eloquent arguments of her books, Williams is a politically active conservationist, having addressed U.S. Congressional committees and having served as a member of the President’s Council for Sustainable Development. She currently serves on the advisory boards of the National Parks and Conservation Association, The Nature Conservancy and the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance. Her achievements have led to her induction to the Rachel Carson Honor Roll and a special conservation achievement award from the National Wildlife Federation.

A fifth-generation Mormon, Williams grew up in sight of the Great Salt Lake. Formerly naturalist-in-residence at the Utah Museum of Natural History, she now lives in the red rock canyonlands of Castle Valley, Utah. “I write through my biases of gender, geography and culture,” Williams states. “I am a woman whose ideas have been shaped by the Great Basin and Colorado Plateau; these ideas are then filtered through the prism of my culture and my culture is Mormon. These tenets of family and community which I see at the heart of that culture are then articulated through story.“

This reading is presented by UCSB Arts & Lectures and the SB Museum of Natural History. It is part of an on-going collaboration featuring major writers whose work expresses strong ties to nature; previous readings in the series were by W.S. Merwin, T.C. Boyle and Gretel Ehrlich. Courtesy of the UCSB Bookstore, books by Terry Tempest Williams will be available for purchase and signing at the event.

Ticket prices are $12 for the general public and $8 for UCSB students and SBMNH members. Tickets are on sale in advance or may be purchased the night of the reading, if available, beginning at 6:30 pm at the Museum.

For tickets or more information,
call the UCSB Arts & Lectures Ticket Office at (805) 893-3535
or the SB Museum of Natural History at (805) 682-4711

Editor: For photos, please call
George Yatchisin at (805) 893-3494.

©2002 UCSB Arts & Lectures, University of California, Santa Barbara