Tackling challenges 'all for the good'

 

“The natural world is the only one we have. To try to not see the natural world - to put on blinders and avoid seeing it - would for me seem like a form of madness. I'm also interested in the way landscape shapes individuals and populations, and from that, cultures.” - Rick Bass

 

Born in Fort Worth, TX on March 7, 1958, Bass is the son of a geologist and was a petroleum geologist himself until he started writing short stories on his lunch breaks.  That led to him to an award-winning career as both a writer and environmental activist.  Now a resident of the remote Yaak Valley in Montana, his books, stories and essays are distributed worldwide, and he also is a nationally known speaker on environmental issues.   

 

Among Bass’s more than two dozen books are the award-winning Where the Sea Used to Be; his short story collection The Lives of Rocks; and the autobiographical Why I Came West.  Among his many other prizes are the General Electric Younger Writers Award, a PEN/Nelson Algren Special Citation for Fiction, and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship. He writes both fiction and nonfiction, and his latest book is the nonfiction Wrecking Ball: Race, Friendship, God, and Football, published in 2025.

When asked about writing fiction versus nonfiction, he said, “I think a novelist must be more tender with living or 'real' people. . . A novel that features real people is complicated, but in the end, that extra challenge is all for the good.”