In 1984, Williams published her first book,
The Secret Language of Snow, with her mentor at the Teton Science School, Ted Major. It is a children's book illustrated by Jennifer Dewey, published by Sierra Club Books/Pantheon. It was honored with a National Science Book Award. Over the next few years, Williams published three other books:
Pieces of White Shell: A Journey to Navajo Land (Charles Scribners Sons, 1984, illustrated by Clifford Brycelea, a Navajo artist),
Between Cattails (Little, Brown, 1985, illustrated by Peter Parnall), and
Coyote’s Canyon, (Peregrine Smith, 1989, with photographs by John Telford).
In 1991, Terry Tempest Williams' memoir,
Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place was published by Pantheon Books to national acclaim. The book interweaves memoir and natural history, recounting her mother's diagnosis with ovarian cancer along with the concurrent flooding of the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge, a place special to Williams since childhood. The book's epilogue,
The Clan of One-Breasted Women, explores whether the high incidence of cancer in her family might be due to their status as downwinders during the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission's above-ground nuclear testing in the 1950s and 60s. This essay has been published worldwide. This book received the 1991 Evans Biography Award from the Mountain West Center for Regional Studies at Utah State University.
In 1995, when Utah wilderness was under siege in the United States Congress, Williams and writer Stephen Trimble edited the powerful collection,
Testimony: Writers Speak On Behalf of Utah Wilderness, a landmark effort by twenty American writers written to sway public policy. A copy of this chapbook of essays about the significance of Utah wilderness was placed on the desk of every member of the United State Congress. On September 18, 1996, President Bill Clinton at the dedication of the new Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, held up this book and said, "This made a difference."
Among her other books are
Pieces of White Shell (1984),
An Unspoken Hunger(1994),
Leap (2000),
Red: Passion and Patience in the Desert (2001), and
The Open Space of Democracy (2004), and
Finding Beauty in a Broken World, (2008).
Williams has also collaborated with many photographers in the creation of fine art books. Among the photographers she has worked with: Emmet Gowin; Richard Misrach; Debra Bloomfield; Meridel Rubenstein, Rosalie Winard; and Edward Riddell.
She has also been published in numerous anthologies pertaining to environmental, feminist, political, and literary anthologies.
Terry Tempest Williams is currently the Annie Clark Tanner Scholar in Environmental Humanities at the University of Utah.She has also been a Montgomery Fellow at Dartmouth College where she continues to teach. An acclaimed lecturer on college and university campuses, her writing has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, Orion Magazine, and numerous anthologies worldwide as a crucial voice for ecological consciousness and social change. She and her husband, Brooke Williams, divide their time between Castle Valley, Utah and Jackson Hole, Wyoming
Terry Tempest Williams
Conservationist, Advocate for Free Speech,Author of Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family & Placeand Finding Beauty in a Broken World
List of Written Works
Books
- The Secret Language of Snow (for children; co-authored with Ted Major), 1984.
- Pieces of White Shell: A Journey to Navajoland, Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1984.
- Between Cattails, Little, Brown, Boston, 1985.
- Coyote's Canyon, Peregrine Smith, Layton, Utah, 1989.
- Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place, Pantheon Books, New York, 1991, ISBN 0-679-74024-4.
- Leap,Pantheon Books, New York, 2000.
- The Illuminated Desert’’, Canyonlands Natural History Association, Moab, Utah, 2008.
- Finding Beauty In A Broken World, Pantheon Books, New York, 2008.
Poetry Collections
- Between Cattails (for children), Little, Brown, Boston, 1985.
- Earthly Messengers, Western Slope Press, Provo, Utah, 1989.
Essay Collections
- An Unspoken Hunger: Stories from the Field, Pantheon Books, New York, 1994.
- Desert Quartet: An Erotic Landscape, Pantheon Books, New York, 1995.
- Red: Passion and Patience in the Desert, Pantheon Books, New York, 2001.
- The Open Space of Democracy, Orion Society Books, Great Barrington, Mass, 2004.
Works Edited by Terry Tempest Williams
- Great and Peculiar Beauty: A Utah Centennial Reader(edited with Thomas J. Lyon), Peregrine Smith, Layton, Utah 1995.
- Testimony: Writers in Defense of the Wilderness(compiled with Stephen Trimble), Milkweed Press, Minneapolis, 1996.
- New Genesis: A Mormon Reader on Land and Community(edited with William B. Smart, and Gibbs M. Smith), Peregrine Smith, Layton, Utah 1998.