The author and activist talks with YES! about millennials, climate change, and how she can’t imagine being alive at “a more thrilling, challenging time.” Terry Tempest Williams lives with her husband in Utah, but I met her in Vermont, near Dartmouth College, where she teaches part of each year. The lush foliage of a damp New England spring is nothing like the desert terrain she grew up with, she told me when we sat down together during my brief visit last May. She relishes the many species of trees, birds, and plants, but sometimes all the green makes her feel closed in, and she yearns for the dry, open country of home. It’s her deep connection to place and to wilderness that Williams is known for. Her books celebrate the prairie dog, migratory birds, and the natural history of the Utah desert. But she also writes about her Mormon faith, about the cancer that took the lives of her mother, brother, grandmother, and other members of her extended family—and about her belief that above-ground nuclear testing is to blame. Williams’ writing is enriched by a practice she mentioned several times in our conversation: “ground truthing.” She doesn’t settle for secondhand […]
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