Terry Tempest-Williams

Sydny Maloberti

TERRY TEMPEST WILLIAMS

American Nature Writer (b.1955-present)

"To be whole. To be complete. Wildness reminds us what it means to be human,

what we are connected to rather than what we are separate from.”

-Terry Tempest Williams

INDEX

I. "Question every Law, Person, and Practice that Denies Justice Towards Nature." - Terry Tempest Williams

Introduction to The "Greening of the Humanities"

II. "How do the Stories we Tell About Ourselves in Relationship to Our Place Shape Our Perceptions of Place." - Terry Tempest Williams

A Short Biography of Terry Tempest Williams

III. "Am I an Activist or an Artist?" - Terry Tempest Williams

Terry Tempest Williams as an Environmental Activist

IV. "What I Fear and Desire Most in This World Is Passion" -Terry Tempest Williams

Eco-Feminism

V. "To Leap Before We Look, to Follow our Instincts, our Intuitions, this is the Pathway to Change:" - Terry Tempest WIlliams

Terry Tempest Williams as a Philosopher of Religion

VI. "Education Ought to Allow for Bonding to the Natural World" -Terry Tempest Williams

Project Weather Report: An Educational Initiative.

VII. "The Human Heart is the First Home of Democracy, With the Courage to Act Relentlessly" -Terry Tempest Williams

American Nature Writing: Thoreau and Terry Tempest Williams

"PEACE, EDUCATION, CONSERVATION, AND QUIET"

-Georgia O'Keffe, Red Hills with Bones

I. THE GREENING OF THE HUMANITIES: an intellectual movement and way of life.

"If we are at all sensitive to the life around us, to one another's pains and joys,

to the beauty and fragility of the Earth, it is all about being broken open, allowing ourselves to

step out from out hardened veneers and expose our core, allowing ourselves to be vulnerable in our emotional response to the world. And how can we not respond? This is what I mean by being 'broken open.' To engage. To love. Any one of these actions of the heart will lead to a personal transformation that bears collective gifts."

- Terry Tempest Williams, from an interview on her book LEAP (qtd. Moonwater).

Terry Tempest Williams is a self proclaimed participant and widely recognized guru of the expansion of the study of the environment. As Williams expressed in an interview about her book published in 2000, LEAP, individuals need to employ "actions of the heart" regarding the global environmental debate. This new concern for the personal and emotional approaches to the environment is the cornerstone of the academic movement commonly called "The Greening of the Humanities." “The Greening of the Humanities” has blurred the distinction between the study of science, humanities, and the social sciences. The "Greening of the Humanities" incorporates the importance of nature into literature and the importance of literature into the scientific study of nature. Beginning in the 1990s “The Greening of the Humanities” culminated in the creation of the ever expanding discipline of Environmental Studies. The field on Environmental Studies takes the scientific elements of the study of the environment and connects them to the politics, human relationships, and even art. Environmental Studies scholar John Elder stated, “The discipline began as a response to problems and controversy, but it has moved beyond that; we’re trying to teach a form of attention to the landscape, to the whole environment, human and natural” (Parini, 2). According to David Orr, another highly acclaimed scholar of the movement, the study of the environment should allow for the study of, “the geology, the weather patterns, the plants and animals that thrive in a particular region. But we also need to include human beings as part of the landscape, which means paying attention to the indigenous cultures and the stories of immigrations” (Parini, 2). In the following interview David Orr summarizes his view on the need for a multifaceted study of the environment.

The fusion of the scientific study to the cultural study which Orr explains is what makes Environmental Studies a new and increasingly complex field of study. Orr goes even further to acclaim that, “Environmental Studies marks a return to activism and social responsibility; it also signifies a dismissal of theory’s more solipsistic tendencies.” And, “offers a natural place for various branches of knowledge to meet, where connections are celebrated” (Parini, 2). These connections which Orr explains are what make writers like Williams so important. In her most recent work, Finding Beauty in a Broken World, Williams connects the importance of relationships and family in direct connection with the environment and the many endangered species of the west. In a recent interview with Betsy Burton Williams discloses the joys and challenges of writing in the new style the "Greening" has made possible,

A Seeker After Truth in Our Broken World: An interview with Terry Tempest Williams.

With the “Greening of the Humanities” the cultural aesthetics of the environmental debate become a new and important focus of the global environmental debate. The "Greening of the Humanities" has made the study of the environment into a conscious desire to understand and care for nature, in short, more than an academic field, it has become a way of life.

II. A Short Biography of Terry Tempest Williams:

"I could not separate the Bird Refuge from my family. Devastation respects no boundaries.

The landscape of my childhood and the landscape of my family, the two things

I have always regarded as bedrock, were now subject to change."

-Terry Tempest Williams, Refuge (qtd. Moonwater).

In an review of William's work, Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place, critic Barry Lopez states, "Her demonstration of how deeply human emotional life can become intertwined with a particular landscape could not be more relevant to our lives" (qtd. Moonwater). William's discussion of "human emotional life" is perhaps so touching because the majority of her works are immensely autobiographical. The autobiographical element to Williams' works make a basic understanding of her personal story necessary to better understand the stories she tells.

Williams was born on September 8, 1955 spent the majority of her childhood and adult life in Utah (Goldthwaite, x). The strong connections made to the culture and landscape of Utah made during Williams' childhood have a huge impact on all aspects of her works. The importance of place can be seen in almost all of her works whether specifically about the West of her childhood or Inuit people of Alaska. Williams' love for nature can be attributed easily to the influence of her grandmother Kathryn Blackett Tempest. Tempest was the first to introduce Williams to the Bear River Bird Sanctuary. Williams has described the birds of Bear River as:

"There are those birds you gauge your life by. The burrowing owls five miles from the entrance to the Bear River

Migratory Bird Refuge are mine. Sentries. Each year, they alert me to the regularities of the land (qtd. Chandler).

Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge, Utah

http://www.fws.gov/bearriver/

Bear River is the setting for one of Williams' most celebrated works, Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place. Tempest is also responsible for introducing Williams to Rachel Carson's influential work, Silent Spring (Goldthwaite, x). Williams has described Carson's influence has pushed her to, "question every law, person, and practice that denies justice towards nature" (qtd,Goldthwaite, x). Williams continued her interest in the environment and literature in college. At the University of Utah Williams received degrees in both English and Environmental Education. (Goldwaithe, xii). The interdisciplinary nature of Williams' education has overtly contributed to her unique writing style which bridges countless academic genres. The bridging of these academic genres has earned Williams countless awards and recognition. In 2006 Williams has received the highest honor from The Wilderness Society, the Robert Marshall Award. Additionally over the course of her career Williams has received the the Wallace Stegner Award from The Center for the American West, the Distinguished Achievement Award from the Western American Literature Association, a Lannan Literary Fellowship, and a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship for her work in creative nonfiction (Moonwater ). The vast array of recognition which Williams has received for her works shows how influential she is in each of the genres she touches. To this date Williams has written numerous books, and collections of essays and poems;

BOOKS:

    • Finding Beauty In A Broken World, 2008.
  • Illuminated Desert’’, 2008.
    • Leap, 2000.
    • Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place, 1991
    • Coyote's Canyon, 1989.
    • Pieces of White Shell: A Journey to Navajoland, 1984.
    • The Secret Language of Snow (for children; co-authored with Ted Major), 1984.

ESSAYS:

    • The Open Space of Democracy, 2004.
    • Red: Passion and Patience in the Desert, 2001.
    • Desert Quartet: An Erotic Landscape, 1995.
    • An Unspoken Hunger: Stories from the Field, 1994.

POEMS:

    • Earthly Messengers, 1989.
    • Between Cattails (for children), 1985.

II. An Environmental Activist: Politics and the Environment.

"The Open Space of Democracy depends on engagement, a firsthand accounting of what one sees,

what one feels, and what one thinks, followed by the artful practice of experssing the truth of

our times through our own talents, gifts and voactions. Question. Stand. Speak. Act”

-Terry Tempest Williams (qtd. Moonwater).

Terry Tempest Williams takes the world of Politics and that of the environment and seamlessly fuses them into something much more than environmental activism. Williams supports a movement of engaging. Whether that engagement is related to conservation, fossil fuels, or peace in the Middle East, Williams simply recommends an solution of universal involvement. In a review of her most blatantly political collection of essays, The Open Space of Democary, former President Jimmy Carter states: "Terry Tempest Williams equates the majesty of our nation’s wild places with the essence of America’s democracy. Her inspiring essays are thought provoking reminders of the responsibility each of us has to protect and defend these precious gifts" (qtd. Moonwater).

In the West where Williams calls home the main battle which the leading preservationists and conservationists are fighting is against the developers looking to gain access to fossil-fuels. In an article entitled Oil Lays Waste to the West, which was featured in the LA Times, 12 December 2008, Williams stated, "George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, riding bareback and backward in the last gasp of their fossil-fuel governance, are holding fast to their dictum that what is good for the oil business is good for the country." If those in the oil business were to gain the access to fossil-fuels countless acres of western wilderness would be destroyed. Williams claims that people have confused "capitalism with democracy" and through "the breaking of laws and the relaxing of laws is the sole nature of this growth and greed." Williams argues that preservation can be accomplished only through the power and involvement of the people and, "our power lies in the power of our homelands." These sentiments are all articulated in a speech in March of 2009 at George Washington University and again in May of 2009 at the Progressives Anniversary, Williams cries out "ENOUGH!" and "Protect-Protect"

"ENOUGH!"

"PROTECT-PROTECT"

These overall arguments of these speeches are that people need to separate what they want from what is good. These speech are in Williams’ typical style as she conveys with emotive quality the importance of the active preservation of the American West and the humanity that accompanies it. In Williams' active support for conservation it is impossible to separate the emotional and spiritual value of preservation from the scientific and biological values of preservation. US Senator Bill Bradley describes the value of Williams' written work on the subject as,

"Good writing can make a place come alive. Testimony gives voice to the magnificence and quiet majesty of southern Utah's wilderness lands. I found

its essays and poems useful in setting a tone for what is at stake in the battle over Utah wilderness, particularly for those who had never experienced the

lands of the Basin and Range or Colorado Plateau. If writing itself can be an act of public service, then this collection is it."

--Senator Bill Bradley

In all her political work Williams has the unique talent for bringing the reader home. The highly emotive style of writing combined with hard factual evidence creates a unique sense of familiarity with the far off West. This ability to create connections between her readers and her subject matter is what truly makes Williams such a formidable political opponent.

Williams not only attacks the democratic involvement of the American population regarding the environment, but strongly apposes the war in Iraq as well. Critics of Williams' work such as the Executive Director of the Sierra Club has described the power of Williams' anti-war rhetoric as:

"In a time of despair Terry Tempest Williams offers us hope. In a season of confrontation she provides connection. Against the passions of war she

wields peace. To the bray of hubris she speaks quietly of reflection. And all, each magical phrase of it, is rooted in the land she loves."

- Carl Pope, Executive Director, The Sierra Club

Williams has done most of her written work against the war for an organization called, Codepink. Codepink: Women for Peace is an organization aimed to involve women in peaceful protest of the War in Iraq. A summarization of the more recent activities of the organization which Williams has been involved in reads:

"CODEPINK: Women for Peace is the most exciting thing to have come out of the peace and justice movement since Abby Hoffman and the Yippies! Before the Iraq war, CODEPINK inspired thousands of women throughout the United States and the world to make the color pink synonymous with political rabble rousing. They hung 40-foot pink banners with political slogans out hotel windows, handed out pink educational flyers at pink lemonade stands, and awarded pink slips (actual women's slips) to political and corporate leaders who were leading the US toward war. They yelled out questions during Donald Rumsfeld's testimony in Congress about torture at Abu Ghraib; chained themselves to the entrance of the Halliburton's shareholders meeting; and brought US military families to Iraq to meet Iraqi victims of US bombs. Now the same women who brought you those high-profile "interruptions" during George Bush and Dick Cheney's prime time speeches at the Republican National Convention, bring you an amazing new book: STOP THE NEXT WAR NOW: EFFECTIVE RESPONSES TO VIOLENCE AND TERRORISM" (codepink.org).

Authors working with Codepink not only write against the War but they also actively protest against the War. On March 8, 2003 women authors featured in Stop the War Now with Williams were involved in a protest eleven days before bombs dropped in Iraq and were arrested for singing on the sidewalk in front of the White House.

CODE PINK: WOMEN FOR PEACE

IV.The Eco-Feminist: The Physical, Metaphorical, and Sensual Connections.

"I dissolve. I am water. Only my face is exposed like an apparition over ripples.

Playing with water. Do I dare? My legs open. The rushing water turns my body and touches

me with a fast finger that does not tire. I receive without apology”

-Terry Tempest Williams, The Desert Quartet, (qtd. Cook, 49).

Williams takes a unique approach to solving the problem of the tension created by the male-female dichotomy which feminists and eco-feminist have repeatedly attempted to overturn. Williams attacks this dichotomy like any other eco-feminist but, instead of overturning it, she works within it (Farrell, 3). Williams does this by placing the importance of the solution not in the superiority of either gender, but in the importance of community. Williams attributes this disconnect between the genders to, "It has everything to do with intimacy, Men define intimacy through their bodies. It is physical. They define intimacy with the land in the same way. Men have forgotten what they are connected to" (qtd. Farrell).Williams communicates her feminist views through her emphasis on the importance of relationships, specifically inherent and natural relationship between women and the earth.

Williams returns to the classic understanding of mother earth. Williams resurrects this mythical concept to illustrate the spiritual connection women have with the earth. Williams discusses this idea at length in Refuge, "The women couldn't bear it any longer. They were mothers. They had suffered labor pains but always under the promise of birth. The red hot pains beneath the desert promised death only, as each bomb became a stillborn. A contract had been made and broken between human beings and the land. A new contract was being drawn by the women, who understood the fate of the earth as their own" (Refuge, 288). This spiritual connection to the earth is just the touchstone for Williams' feminist thought.

Surprisingly enough one of Williams' most controversial ideas is the sexual and sensual connection that can be experienced between women and the land. These thoughts are discussed primarily in her collection of essays, The Desert Quartet. This collection of essays describes the erotics of landscape and the passion which women accompany. The essays are accompanied by the works of artist Mary Frank. Frank visually depicts the freedom of the sensual and sexual connections between women and the land which Williams writes about.

Mary Frank, Did You Ever?
Mary Frank, Abide

These images delicately express the connection which Williams graphically describes as the sensual and sexual relationships which are possible between nature and women. Many feminists believe that this view subjugates women as merely sexual object, while Williams argues that this relationship is natural and empowering (Moonwater).

V. Religious Philosopher: A Matriarchal Approach to a Spiritual Land.

"How do we marry our joy with our sorrow in a world as delicate and strong as a spider's silk?

How do we continue to find faith in a world that seems to have abandoned the sacred?"

-Terry Tempest Williams, A Conversation With Terry Tempest Williams.

The route of the majority of Williams' religious thought lies in her Mormon background. Williams draws the power of the feminine earth from her opposition to the highly patriarchal Mormon society. Williams described her struggle with her faith as an internal one, "For many years, I have done just that-- listened, observed and quietly formed my own opinions, in a culture that rarely asks questions because it has the answers" (Farrell, 2). This spiritual quest has led Williams to fully reject the patriarchal nature of Mormonism and find a deep spirituality in the land. As Williams states, "I am a Mormon woman, I am not orthodox. It is the lens through which I see the world. I hear the Tabernacle Choir and it still makes me weep. There are other things within the culture that absolutely enrage me, and for me it is a sacred rage. But it is not peculiar to Mormonism, it's any patriarchy that I think stops, thwarts, or denies our creativity" (Farrell, 2).

Though Williams is both wildly recognized and praised, according to the the elders of the Mormon General Authority, Williams has failed as a Mormon woman. Due to her conscious decision not to have children the Mormon General Authority sent her a letter reminding her, "A female bird, has no option as to whether she will lay eggs or not. She must. God insists. Because if she does not a precious combination will be lost forever" (Farrell, 2). This is the type of patriarchy which Williams rejects so vehemently. Williams states, "If we as Mormon women believe in God the Father and in his son, Jesus Christ, it is only logical that a Mother-in-Heaven balances the sacred triangle. I believe the Holy Ghost is female, although she has remained hidden, invisible, deprived of a body, she is the spirit that seeps into our hearts and directs us to the well. The 'still, small voice' I was taught to listen to as a child was 'the gift of the Holy Ghost.' Today I choose to recognize this presence as holy intuition, the gift of the Mother" (Williams, Refuge, 241). Williams has elevated the power of land into the place of the patriarchy which she rejects.

Williams explains the route of her philosophies as something that was part of her consciousness as a child, "I was raised to believe in a spirit world, that life exists before the earth and will continue to exist afterward, that each human being, bird, and bulrush, along with all other life forms had a spirit life before it came to dwell physically on the earth. Each occupied an assigned sphere of influence, each has a place and a purpose." and, "It made sense to a child. And if the natural world was assigned spiritual values, then those days spent in wildness were sacred. We learned at an early age that God can be found wherever you are, especially outside. Family worship was not just relegated to Sunday in a chapel" (Refuge, 14). Williams best describes the religion of land in her description of a metaphorical baptism, "If you are traveling...hide in the hills of the Hollow, lave in its waters...and your baptisms will make you a new creature indeed...your soul will breathe deep and free in God's shoreless atmosphere of beauty and love" (qtd. Goldthwaite, xv). Williams best describes her belief in the the spiritual connection between mankind and nature in her book LEAP, published in 2000. LEAP is centered around the medieval work of art Bochs' Garden of Earthly Delights. Williams uses Bochs' work to examine the modern spiritual connection between mankind and the land.

FINAL CHAPTER FROM LEAP: "HELL"

VI. Project Weather Report:

Williams brings her philosophies to work through many educational initiatives, the most recent and most successful is Project Weather Report. Williams states that Project Weather Report aims to "take the pulse of the community" (qtd. Moonwater). The project is based in Williams' background in the Humanities. Beginning in the Spring of 2008 Williams has travelled throughout the American West, primarily in Utah, and through her knowledge of writing and expression has hosted numerous writing workshops (Moonwater). In these writing workshops Williams enables ordinary citizens of the towns and cities of Wyoming to express there qualms and connections in their communities. Beth Howard, and opinions editor for the Casper Star Tribuneaccurately describes one of Williams' Weather Reports and what it has done for her and here community of Casper, Wyoming.

Saturday, April 12, 2008 5:05 PM MDT

BETH HOWARD

Perspective

In late March, I attended the "Weather Report" in Casper, hosted by Terry Tempest Williams and her creative writing students. Williams is the University of Wyoming’s first Eminent Writer in Residence in the Master of Arts Program in Creative Writing. As Williams puts it, the "Weather Report takes the pulse of a community."

The following day, a writing workshop was offered to explore stories and it offered community members the opportunity to participate by writing their own stories.

Williams began the workshop by reading, "A Letter to Deb Clow" from her book, "RED." The letter was her answer to Deb’s question, "Why do you write?"

After the reading, Williams asked us to consider what is important to us and then to take 10 minutes to answer the question: "Why do you write?" What follows is my response, written in the same style as Williams' letter:

I write because I am a pacifist mother with twin sons serving in the military. I write because, how could I live with myself if one of my sons were to die in the war and I was not working for peace? I write because it is something I can do for peace. I write because I know that my sons serve in the military for some of the same reasons I write.

I write because I have a husband who loves me and supports me to write. I write because I’ve raised three sons in Cheyenne who grew-up and had the courage to leave. I write because, after they left, I had the courage to stay.

I write because my oldest son believes in his talent as a musician, enough to make a living from it in New York City. I write to find that kind of belief in my own talent. I write because my Marine son has traveled the world, protecting embassies and consulates and has brought back the gift of stories. I write because I know the power of a story to help us understand each other.

I write because people keep saying to me, "I can’t believe that your sons joined the military!" I write to try to shed some light on the judgments and biases that are pervasive about what kind of a person joins the military and agrees to fight a war. I write to tell you that it is my sons.

I write to tell you that I am now the mother of a decorated war hero. My Army son was awarded a Purple Heart after being wounded when he was hit by a roadside bomb. I write to tell you that my son survived his tour of duty in Iraq. I write because my friends’ sons are still fighting this war. I write because many mother’s sons have died.

I write because I am one of the lucky mothers. I write because my Marine son still stands duty at a post in Saudi Arabia. I write because so few people ever ask a member of the Armed Services why they volunteered. I write because people assume they are all experts on the war. I write to offer a different perspective.

I write because I have seen it change a heart, a mind, or turn a belief upside down. I write because when my son joined the Army he wrote a note to our extended family saying that soldiers and Marines do not take up arms to go to war, but to defend freedom in places that have known too little of it. "We hope to defend freedom," he said, "and a peaceful way of life." I write because that is worth writing about.

You may ask, "But why would you seek to publish this?" I do that, because following the "Weather Report" in Casper, I heard two men tell Terry Tempest Williams that they’d demanded that she be fired from her position at the University after she’d been quoted in the Casper Star-Tribune saying something which had offended them and their industry. One said, "But, I’ve changed my mind about it." The other said, "The president of the university has your back." Williams was visibly shaken.

I want both Terry Tempest Williams and those two men to know that there are hundreds, maybe even thousands, of not-so-silent witnesses in the state of Wyoming, who support and are grateful for her work and who defend her absolute right to speak openly and honestly. The final "Weather Report" will be held in Gillette on May 2-3. Learn more at: www.uwyo.edu tw.

What’s important to you? You don’t have to publish it. Take 10 minutes now to jot it down. Why do you write?

Beth Howard is a writer, artist and yoga teacher living in Cheyenne (ttribe.com)

VII. American Nature Writing: Thoreau and Terry Tempest Williams

Perhaps the Wilderness we fear is the pause

Between our own heartbeats, the silence that reminds us

We live by grace

-Terry Tempest Williams

Terry Tempest Williams takes her place among American Nature Writers with the pioneers of the genre such as Henry David Thoreau. Thoreau, Williams and nearly all nature writers share a love and respect for the natural world. Thoreau and Williams share a much more unique connection, they connected by their emphasis on connections; their unique emphasis on spiritual and metaphysical connections between individuals and the natural world. While many American nature writers emphasize conservation and action in their works, Thoreau and Williams both spend the majority of their focus on the “one-ness” that can be felt between each individual and nature. Both Thoreau and Williams feed the most basic human need for connection. Both authors fuse their scientific observations with the importance spiritual and emotional need for relationships. The natural human desire to connect can best be seen in Thoreau’s literal fusion of man and nature in “The Bean-Field” and in William’s interdisciplinary approach to the overall concept of nature writing.

“The Bean-Field” is no doubt one of the most celebrated chapters of Walden. The iconic quotation, “It was no longer the beans that I hoed, or that I hoed beans” (Walden, The Beanfield) is featured on everything from a plaque at Walden Pond to mementos in gift shops everywhere. This simple quotation resonates so loud and true through American culture because it emphasizes relationship and connection. Many American Nature Writers place nature and man at odd, as two forces competing for the same space on the planet. Thoreau, instead of pinning humans and nature at odds with each other, brings the man and the bean-field into one being. A being that can coexist in spiritual harmony.

While Thoreau connects man and nature in his philosophical rhetoric Williams does so through her unique stylistic choices in her writing. In her work Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place Williams seamlessly connects her mother’s struggle with cancer to the flooding of a Bird Sanctuary in Bear River. By connecting her struggles with grief and loss with the grief and loss of nature and ultimately placing the refuge of both in the human ability to connect. In the final chapter of Refuge Williams states, “I am slowly, painfully discovering that my refuge is not found in my mother, my grandmother, or even the birds of Bear River. My refuge exists in my capacity to love.” This emphasis on the power of human connections is what connects Williams to Thoreau.

Williams and Thoreau share the same literary genre with countless authors, yet these two very different authors share the same respect for connection that not many others do. When faced with a struggle it is easy to place the opposing sides at odds with each other. Williams and Thoreau abandon this traditional tactic and embrace the love and respect that can be shared between man and nature.

Bibliography:

Austin, Micheal ed. A Voice in the Wilderness: Converstaions with Terry Tempest Williams. Utah State: Utah UP, 2006.

Brinkley, Alan. “The Western Historians: Don’t Fence Them In.” The New York Times 20 Sept. 1993: BR1.

Chandler, Marilyn R. “Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place by Terry Tempest Williams.” The Women’s Review of Books 9 (1992): 10.

Farrell, Jennifer. “Making Love to the Earth: The Eco-feminism of Terry Tempest Williams.” SESA Conference Online. 27 April 2009 http://www.csufresno.edu/studentorgs/SESAConference/Pub/Carbon%201.1/FarrellArticle.html.

Goldthwaite, Melissa A. and Katharine Chandler R. eds. Survery the Literary Landscapes of Terry Tempest. Salt Lake City: Utah UP, 2003.

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Mitchell, John Hanson. “Mother Earth.” The New York Times 4 Sept. 1994: BR6.

Moonwater, Rose Z. Coyote Clan: Terry Tempest Williams. 2009. 10 May 2009. http://www.coyoteclan.com/index.html.

Orr, David. “Biological Diversity, Agriculture, and the Liberal Arts.” Conservation Biology 5.3 (1991): 268-270

Parini, Jay. “The Greening of the Humanities.” The New York Times 29 Oct. 1995: SM52.

Sarver, Stephanie. “Environmentalism and Literary Studies.” Rocky Mountain Review of Language and Literature 49 (1995): 106-112.

Williams, Terry Tempest. Red: Passion and Patience in the Desert. New York: Pantheon Books, 2001.

Williams, Terry Tempest. Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place. New York: Pantheon Books, 1991.

Wright, Gregory Alan. “Violating the Feminine Land, Body and Spirit in Western American Literature.” Dissertation Abstracts International: The Humanities and Socail Sciences 4 (2007): 1465.