Articles by Terry Tempest Williams

  • Badger signs: An essay from Terry Tempest Williams’ new book ‘The Glorians’, by Terry Tempest Williams, High Country News, March 5, 2026.
  • Terry Tempest Williams on the Plight of the Monarch Butterfly, by Terry Tempest Williams, Literary Hub, March 3, 2026.
  • A Hollow Bone, by Terry Tempest Williams, Photos by Christina Seely, Emergence Magazine, December 18, 2025.
  • Dreaming with Water: On Not Looking Away, by Robert McFarland and Terry Tempest Williams, Orion magazine, July 16, 2025.
  • Americans Fought Off This Awful Idea in Trump’s Bill, by Terry Tempest Williams, New York Times, July 6, 2025
  • When the Flash Flood Comes With Godlike Velocity, Why Do I Stay and Watch? by Terry Tempest Williams, New York Times, August 31, 2024.
  • 47 Days in Extreme Heat, and You Begin to Notice Things, by Terry Tempest Williams, Photographs by Michael Lundgren, New York Times, August 18, 2023.
  • I am Haunted by What I Have Seen at Great Salt Lake, by Terry Tempest Williams, New York Times, March 25, 2023.
  • Witness to the Cold War in the desert, Terry Tempest Williams on Emmet Gowin’s unflinching photos of the Nevada Test Site. High Country News, June 1, 2022.
  • Take Place: Celebrating M. Scott Momaday, by Terry Tempest Williams, Paris Review, September 15, 2021.
  • “Midnight monument”? No, Utah leaders had years to make a Bears Ears deal, Op-Ed by Terry Tempest Williams and Bill Hedden, published in the Salt Lake Tribune, December 20, 2016.
  • Will our national parks survive the next 100 years?, Op-Ed by Terry Tempest Williams, published in the Los Angeles Times, August 25, 2016.
  • Keeping My Fossil Fuel in the Ground, Op-Ed in the New York Times, written by Terry Tempest Williams, published March 29, 2016.
  • River Walkers: the Orion Blog, A letter from Terry Tempest Williams sent from the People’s Climate March, published on September 22, 2014.
  • The Glorious Indifference of Wilderness, Published in the September/October 2014 issue of Orion magazine. Also from Orion, hear editor Jennifer Sahn and Terry Tempest Williams speak about the writing of this piece.
  • An Open Letter to the Mormon Church, In Support of Kate Kelly &”Ordain Women” + Why Excommunication Is Not the Answer, published on June 13, 2014.
  • Book Bag: Terry Tempest Williams’s Birding Bibles: Forget the Bible or the Torah—for author Terry Tempest Williams, there are two books that matter above all others: her Sibley and Peterson bird field guides. Published in The Daily Beast, March 27, 2013, by Terry Tempest Williams.
  • Read Terry Tempest Williams’ tribute to her father published in the Salt Lake City Tribune on June 14, 2012.
  • Terry Tempest Williams writes a column published in the print version of The Progressive magazine. Excerpts from many of the columns are available online.
  • The Los Angeles Times published an Opinion piece by Terry Tempest Williams on December 7, 2008, entitled “Oil lays waste to the West”. Read it online here.
  • “White flags and cotton grass,” by Terry Tempest Williams, was published August 27, 2005, in the Viewpoints section of the Daily News of Bangor, Maine. Same article online at Orion Society web site entitled A Season of Remembrance.
  • Terry Tempest Williams wrote a poem to honor the memory of writer, artist, and naturalist Ellen Meloy, who passed away suddenly in November, 2004. Information about Ellen’s books, tributes (including the poem), photographs, and information about the Ellen Meloy Memorial Fund are all available on Ellen Meloy’s web site.
  • The third essay in a three part series written by Terry Tempest Williams was published in the July/August 2004 issue of Orion Magazine. The essay is entitled, “Engagement,” and is accompanied by beautiful paintings by the artist Mary Frank. You can read it online at the Orion Society’s web site. All three essays in this series will be made available in a book, The Open Space of Democracy, in August 2004.
  • The second essay in a three part series written by Terry Tempest Williams was published in the May/June 2004 issue of Orion Magazine. Featuring the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the essay is entitled, Ground Truthing – An Open Journal from the Arctic,” and is accompanied by beautiful paintings by the artist Mary Frank. You can read this online at the Orion Society’s web site.
  • The March/April 2004 edition of Orion Magazine contains the first essay of a three part series by Terry Tempest Williams, entitled, “Commencement.” Read it online at the Orion Society web site, with beautiful accompanying paintings by the artist Mary Frank.
  • Read a piece entitled A lesson in engagement from Mary Page Stegner, by Terry Tempest Williams in Writers on the Range, February 17, 2003, in High Country News online. May require login.
  • The essay “A City of Salt and Granite” was published in the 2002 Official Souvenir Program of the Salt Lake City Olympics. Read it here.
  • “Chewing Up a Fragile Land” is an opinion piece in the New York Times by Terry Tempest Williams, February 21, 2002, about what the Bush administration energy plan is doing to our fragile wilderness areas in southern Utah. Another version of this article, entitled “Bearing Witness,” with accompanying photos, appears on the Orion Society’s website. The July/August, 2002, issue of Mother Jones has an article entitled “Open Season on Open Space,” by Bob Burtman, which details the Bush administration’s aggressive move to drill oil and gas on public lands across the West.
  • Article entitled “911: In Response to Place,” by Terry Tempest Williams, about her experience in Washington, D.C., on September 11, 2001.
  • Article entitled, “A Bow to the Caribou,” published in The Wilderness Society’s Wilderness Magazine, October, 2001.
  • Terry Tempest Williams was part of a wilderness expedition team who visited Palmyra Atoll. View it online at One World Journeys, Journey to Palmyra Atoll: Rainforest of the Sea.
        Palmyra Atoll is the last intact marine wilderness in the Pacific Ocean, and consists of 680 acres of land and 15,512 acres of coral reefs, emerald islets and turquoise lagoons. It’s also the only nesting habitat for migratory seabirds and shorebirds within 450,000 square miles of ocean. Undeveloped and preserved in isolation just above the equator, Palmyra is one of The Nature Conservancy’s most significant land acquisitions.
        Join the award-winning web expeditions team from OneWorldJourneys.com along with author Terry Tempest Williams, and Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard as they explore and document Palmyra’s coral reefs, rare bird population and fascinating history.
  • Article about Edward Abbey. “He loved to be in our face. Still does, no doubt.” By Terry Tempest Williams, Outside magazine, October 1997.
  • Article by Terry Tempest Williams, entitled “Listening Days”, on the EnviroArts: Orion Online website. This essay was originally published in the Spring 1997 issue of Parabola, Vol 22, No. 1.

Articles about Terry Tempest Williams

  • On coming home: Terry Tempest Williams reflects on moving back to Utah, Deseret News, March 22, 2026.
  • Terry Tempest Williams Breaks Bread to Bridge Divides, Santa Fe New Mexican, May 16, 2025
  • Terry Tempest Williams at the Merwin Conservancy, December, 2024 Brief video
  • Something Deeper Than Hope, The story of Weather Reports, one of the most expansive event series in Harvard Divinity School’s history, is a story of collective imagination Harvard Divinity School, November 3, 2022.
  • Conservationist Terry Tempest Williams puts herself on frontline of climate fight, Article by Ben Goldfarb, published in The Guardian, December 31, 2016.
  • The Redemption of Narrative: Terry Tempest Williams and Her Vision of the West, A new book by Jan Whitt, published April, 2016, by Mercer University Press.
  • Terry Tempest Williams leaving U.; critics say school prioritized paperwork over what she taught a generation of students in Utah’s wild landscapes, article in the Salt Lake Tribune, written by Brian Maffly, published May 4, 2016.
  • Auction of Utah oil & gas leases spurs author Terry Tempest Williams to (legally) buy lease, article in the Salt Lake Tribune, published February 16, 2016.
  • Read an article entitled “Out of Rwanda: eloquence, forgiveness– Tutsi in Salt Lake tells stories of fear, death and dogs,” by Elaine Jarvik, published by the Deseret News on June 15, 2007.
  • The Lannan Foundation sponsored a reading by Terry Tempest Williams from her book, Mosaic: Finding Beauty in a Broken World and a conversation with Christopher Merrill, in Santa Fe, New Mexico, on May 30, 2007. Christopher Merrill is a poet, non-fiction author, and director of the University of Iowa’s International Writing Program. The Lannan Foundation has a podcast of both Terry’s reading and her conversation with Christopher Merrill.
  • Read an article entitled The Power of Storytelling: Nature writer Terry Tempest Williams challenges us to take part in spirited conversation and honest storytelling, by Jena Ball, in the June/July 2007 issue of Mother Earth News.
  • Radio Expeditions, a co-production of NPR and the National Geographic Society presented “50 Years on, a Passion for the Wild Endures, by Elizabeth Arnold, on July 26, 2006. In July of 1956, wilderness activists Olaus and Mardy Murie made an expedition to the upper Sheenjek River of Alaska’s Brooks Range to inventory the wonders of an all-but-untouched wilderness. Their survey of the region set in motion the effort to protect what is now the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Photos, video, and the radio program are available online here.
  • The Wilderness Act 40th Anniversary Wilderness Advocacy Week took place in Washington, D.C., September 18-22, 2004. More than 300 participants from two-dozen states were expected to descend on the nation’s Capitol for a week of training, celebrations and educating members of Congress about wilderness protection efforts around the country. Read an article published in the Deseret News September 20, 2004, about the 40th Anniversary Gala dinner at the National Press Club. See the Wilderness Society web site for more information.
  • On August 9, 2004, NPR’s Talk of the Nation radio program featured 150 Years of Walden, a story about the 150th anniversary of the publication of Henry David Thoreau’s Walden. Terry Tempest Williams participated in this radio program and it can be heard online. Terry Tempest Williams also wrote the foreward for Shambala’s special anniversary edition of Walden, with wood engravings by Michael McCurdy.
  • Terry Tempest Williams participated in dedication ceremonies for a new visitor center at the Great Salt Lake Shorelands Preserve. The Nature Conservancy purchased the land to create a wetlands sanctuary for millions of migrating bird. Read an article published June 20, 2004, “Nature preserve gets a new ‘nest’,” by Donna Kemp Spangler, in the Deseret News.
  • Read an article in the Sunday, March 21, 2004, issue of Deseret News entitled “Reflective Activism,” by Susan Whitney. The article is about Terry Tempest Williams’ appointment as the Annie Tanner Fellow at the University of Utah’s new graduate program in environmental studies, the Lyceum II lecture, and community environmental activism and dialogue.
  • The Obert C. and Grace A. Tanner Humanities Center of the University of Utah, in conjunction with the College of Humanities, announced the three-year appointment of Terry Tempest Williams as the Annie Clark Tanner Fellow in Environmental Studies. The fellowship began in the fall of 2004. (Press release issued on October 13, 2003.)
  • “Surveying the Literary Landscapes of Terry Tempest Williams: New Critical Essays,” edited by Katherine R. Chandler and Melissa A. Goldthwaite was published in October, 2003, by the University of Utah Press.
  • Articled entitled “Guardians of the Redrock,” by Hamot Manley, Sunset Magazine, September, 2002. (Available via Looksmart articles search engine.)
  • Audio interviews on New Dimensions Radio.
  • Article in the Kansas City Star entitled “To singe our souls into action,” about Terry Tempest Williams and the RED book tour event, from October 6, 2001. Includes the revised “Strike Moment” essay.
  • Essay entitled “The Great Chorus of Woman and Nature,” by Lorraine Anderson, which serves as the introduction to AT HOME ON THIS EARTH: TWO CENTURIES OF U.S. WOMEN’S NATURE WRITING, edited by Lorraine Anderson and Thomas S. Edwards, published by University Press of New England, Spring 2002. This essay outlines a tradition of women’s nature writing in the United States in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
  • Meeting with students at Mount Holyoke College, 10/24/00 about having Refuge as its common reader. Entitled :Speaking from the Heart: Terry Tempest Williams.” Includes photo.
  • Review of Terry Tempest Williams’ March, 1996 talk at the University of Tucson, entitled “Piercing the Heart.”
  • Article about Terry Tempest Williams’ talk November, 2000, at the Center for the American West, University of Boulder, CO. Entitled “Skyearth Letters: Consider the Earth” , by Cherie Staples.
  • Entitled “Getting it Right”, a roundtable discussion from Sierra magazine. Prepare for victory today: An eclectic group of environmental visionaries gathers at the electronic roundtable. January/February, 2000.
  • Article entitled, “A Fierce Responsibility,” by Stephanie Mencimer, published in Mother Jones magazine, March, 1994, about the public-lands debate, and the clan of one-breasted women.

Interviews

  • The Book Show #1466 – Terry Tempest Williams, Interview by Joe Donahue on The Hour of Land, WAMC Northeast Public Radio, published August 23, 2016.
  • Terry Tempest Williams Peers Into the Shadows Of Our National Parks, Article by Nora Saks, published August 8, 2016, Montana Public Radio.
  • Storyteller: An Interview with Terry Tempest Williams, Interview by D. J. Lee, published July 19, 2016, by Los Angeles Review of Books.
  • Terry Tempest Williams’ “The Hour Of Land” on Wednesday’s Access Utah, TTW interview with Tom Williams, published June 28, 2016.
  • The Hour of Land, RadioWest Interview, Doug Fabrizio of RadioWest, KUER, NPR of Utah, interviews Terry Tempest Williams on The Hour of Land, June 1, 2016.
  • Finding Joy and Discomfort in the History of the National Parks, To The Best of Our Knowledge: Terry Tempest Williams on wilderness and her forthcoming book, published November 15, 2015, from Living Dangerously: Live in Utah.
  • Terry Tempest Williams: “Survival Becomes a Spiritual Practice,” 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.”, interview by Sarah van Gelder, published on October 5, 2015.
  • A Love That is Wild, Hear Terry Tempest Williams’ keynote talk at Bioneers.
  • 10 Questions: On Finding Your ‘Soul-Life’ in a 130-Year-Old Book, Interview with Terry Tempest Williams and Brooke Williams in Adventure Journal, published on November 10, 2014
  • A Wild Success, The Endangered Species Act celebrated its fortieth birthday. Orion contributing editor Terry Tempest Williams reflects on this major American achievement, and how it continues to shape our relationship with the natural world, published in Orion Magazine on December 31, 2013.
  • An Encore Hour With Terry Tempest Williams: Monday’s Access Utah, aired August 23, 2013, on Utah Public Radio (UPR), listen online.
  • Ground Truthing, Devon Fredericksen interviews Terry Tempest Williams for Guernica Magazine, published August 1, 2013, read it online here in Guernica Magazine.
  • The Rumpus Interview with Terry Tempest Williams, by Roxane Gay, published July 4, 2013, read it online here in The Rumpus.
  • Pandora’s Terrifying Promise: Can Nuclear Power Save the Planet? A conversation about a new documentary, its provocative claims—and the facts it leaves out, by Mark Hertsgaard and Terry Tempest, published in The Nation on June 10, 2013.
  • Terry Tempest Williams interviewed on Travel with Rick Steves’ radio program on May 11, 2013. Listen online here.
  • Listen to Terry’s interview on When Women Were Birds, on The Story.
  • Interview with Terry Tempest Williams, by Brad Listi, on Other People Podcast, with Terry Tempest Williams, February 17, 2013.
  • What Love Looks Like, A conversation with Tim DeChristopher
    by Terry Tempest Williams, published in the January/February 2012 issue of Orion magazine
  • Makers: Voices of Utah Women, produced by KUED’s Nancy Green, tells the story of the women’s movement in Utah through the firsthand accounts of leaders and activists who fought to alter the social fabric of the state. Watch the full video online.
  • An Hour With Terry Tempest Williams: Access Utah Tuesday: Tom Williams interviewed Terry Tempest Williams for UPR, Utah Public Radio, recorded on June 12, 2012, available online here.
  • “Five Rivers, Five Voices,” a new film by KUED Channel 7, features a segment on the San Juan River with Terry Tempest Williams. Here’s a promo on YouTube, a flier.
  • Read about Terry Tempest Williams’ recent visit to the University of Delaware where she spoke on campus as part of the DENIN Dialogue Lecture Series, hosted by the Delaware Environmental Institute.
  • Terry Tempest Williams answers 20 questions on The Reading Room.
  • Hear Terry Tempest Williams speak on “The Vitality of the Struggle” on American Public Media’s Being program, from February 3, 2011. The naturalist and writer Terry Tempest Williams offers notions of neighborliness, sacred rage, and beauty as a matter of survival. And she sheds light on the American West as a crucible of American divides and possibilities.
  • Read “This Associative Life: An Interview with Terry Tempest Williams,” by Kevin Smokler in the Winter 2009/2010 online edition of RainTaxi.
  • An interview with Terry Tempest Williams by John Sterling, was published in High Desert Journal, Spring 2009 (Number 9).
  • The American Association of Museums published an article entitled “A Place to Be Quietly Subversive” A Conversation with Terry Tempest Williams, in Museum, May/June, 2008. Read it online here.
  • The Progressive features an interview of Terry Tempest Williams, available as a podcast from Progressive Radio, posted on November 5, 2007. Download or listen online here. The article was first published in the February, 2005, issue of The Progressive and the interview is by David Kupfer. Read it online.
  • Listen to a podcast of a conversation between the artist Robert Shetterly and Terry Tempest Williams from radio station WERU 89.9 in Blue Hill, Maine, that played on the audio magazine “Weekend Voices” on June 30, 2007, and was recorded on May 18, 2007. Listen to it here.
  • Read Art as a Spark for Social Change, by Terry Tempest Williams, on the Worldchanging.com web site, published on April 19, 2007, in honor of Earth Day.
    Terry was one of the Barefoot Artists who accompanied Lily Yeh to Rwanda in 2005 and 2007. Learn more about the Rwanda Healing Project on the barefootartists.org web site.
  • SNEWS Live sat down one-on-one with Terry Tempest Williams following her keynote address at the Conservation Alliance’s annual meeting during Outdoor Retailer Winter Market 2007, in Salt Lake City, UT. The topic of the interview was the role that art and poetry can play in creating a life dedicated to conservation and sustainability. The interview is available online as a podcast, posted on March 2, 2007.
  • Terry Tempest Williams was interviewed by Marcia Franklin of Dialogue, a show on Idaho Public Television. Terry was in Idaho to receive the Distinguished Achievement Award from the Western American Literature Association in October, 2006. The program aired on December 28, 2006, is wide-ranging, and you can view or listen to it online from the Idaho Public Television web site. There are several streams and formats to choose from.
  • Voice in the Wilderness: Conversations with Terry Tempest Williams, edited by Michael Austin.
  • Utah State University Press has published a book of interviews entitled A Voice in the Wilderness: Conversations with Terry Tempest Williams, edited by Michael Austin, (August, 2006). Milkweed Editions published Postcards from Ed: Dispatches and Salvos from an American Iconoclast, written by Edward Abbey, edited by David Petersen and with a Foreword by Terry Tempest Williams, in August, 2006. Trinity University Press published Home Ground: Language for an American Landscape, edited by Barry Lopez and Debra Gwartney. 45 poets and writers contributed to this book, including Terry Tempest Williams.
  • “We Leave Our Doors Wide Open,” is an inteview with Terry Tempest Williams published on Terrain.org, Issue No. 17 – Fall/Winter 2005, available online here.
  • Wild Side News featured an audio interview with Terry Tempest Williams on “The Open Space of Democracy.” The interview is conducted by Sidney Wildesmith, Wild Side News host, and ran September 16, 2004.
  • Read “A Conversation with Terry Tempest Williams,” published in Delicious Living Magazine, Wise Words, October, 2003 issue, in which she speaks about a recent trip to the Arctic.
  • Read an interview with Terry Tempest Williams by Tricia Brick, in the Summer, 2003, issue of Etude, New Voices in Literary Nonfiction. Etude is published by the Literary Nonfiction Program at the School of Journalism and Communication, University of Oregon.
  • Read an interview with Terry Tempest Williams entitled “Testimony, Refuge, and the Sense of Place – A Conversation with Terry Tempest Williams,” by David Thomas Sumner, in the Spring/Summer 2002 issue of Weber Studies (Volume 19.3).
  • Brief audio interview with Terry Tempest Williams by Melinda Tuhus on Between the Lines, a weekly radio newsmagazine which is part of WPKN radio in Bridgeport, CT, for the week ending July 19, 2002. Terry discusses her bond with photographer Emmet Gowin, the impact of Gowin’s images, the American Southwest, downwinders, nuclear testing, the Nevada Test Site, and the necessity of bearing witness.
  • A commentary on Homeland Security and the Fate of Public Lands by Terry Tempest Williams is available on Now with Bill Moyers (PBS) website, March 8, 2002. The full program transcript is available here.
  • “The Politics of Place” with Terry Tempest Williams. A conversation with prize-winning author and naturalist Terry Tempest Williams about the meaning of home, community, and our changing relationship to the land. May, 1995, Santa Barbara, CA. Interview by Scott London, on the website Insight & Outlook. Insight & Outlook was a weekly public radio series which aired on NPR. Full Transcript.
  • Interview entitled “Erosional Spirituality”, by Julie A. Wortman, in A Global Witness, which publishes the online magazine, The Witness, April 2001, with great accompanying photos.

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