'Breaking out of established patterns'

 

“Creativity involves breaking out of established patterns in order to look at things in a different way.” ― Terry Tempest Williams

 

Born in California on this date in 1955, author, conservationist, and activist Williams has focused many of her writings on the American West.  Her work ranges from issues of 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 Award from the Western American Literature Association and the Wallace Stegner Award from 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 of Family and Place, a masterpiece of interweaving memoir and natural history.

 

“Writing is also about a life engaged. And so, for me, community work, working in the schools or with grassroots conservation organizations is another critical component of my life as a writer . . . Writing is daring to feel what nurtures and breaks our hearts. Bearing witness is its own form of advocacy. It is a dance with pain and beauty.”