Terry Tempest Williams is an American author, conservationist, and activist.
Background
Terry Williams was born on September 8, 1955 in Corona, California, United States, in the family of Diane Dixon Tempest and John Henry Tempest, III. Her father was serving in the United States Air Force in Riverside, California, for two years. She grew up in Salt Lake City, Utah, within sight of Great Salt Lake. Atomic testing at the Nevada Test Site between 1951 and 1962 exposed Williams' family to radiation like many Utahns, which Williams believes is the reason so many members of her family have been affected by cancer.
Education
In 1978, Williams graduated from the University of Utah with a degree in English and a minor in biology, followed by a Master of Science degree in environmental education in 1984.
Career
In 1976 Williams was hired to teach science at Carden Memorial School. She often clashed with the conservative couple that led the school over her unorthodox teaching methods and environmental politics, but she respected their gift of teaching through storytelling and prized her five years there. After graduating from college, Williams worked as a teacher in Montezuma Creek, Utah, on the Navajo Reservation. She worked at the Utah Museum of Natural History from 1986–1996, first as curator of education and later as naturalist-in-residence.
Williams published her first book, "The Secret Language of Snow" in 1984. Over the next few years, she published three other books: "Pieces of White Shell: A Journey to Navajo Land", "Between Cattails", and "Coyote’s Canyon."
In 1991, Williams' memoir, "Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place" was published by Pantheon Books. Williams and writer Stephen Trimble edited the collection, "Testimony: Writers Speak On Behalf of Utah Wilderness", an effort by twenty American writers to sway public policy.
Williams' writing on ecological and social issues has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, and Orion magazine, among others. She has also collaborated in the creation of fine art books with photographers Emmet Gowin, Richard Misrach, Debra Bloomfield, Meridel Rubenstein, Rosalie Winard, and Edward Riddell.
Achievements
Terry is famous as the author of a number of books: "Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place"; "An Unspoken Hunger: Stories from the Field"; "Desert Quartet"; "Leap"; "Red: Passion and Patience in the Desert"; "The Open Space of Democracy"; and "Finding Beauty in a Broken World." She has been a guest at the White House, has camped in the remote regions of the Utah and Alaska wildernesses and worked as "a barefoot artist" in Rwanda.
Williams met her husband Brooke Williams in 1974 while working part-time at Sam Weller's Bookstore, a Salt Lake City bookstore, where he was a customer. The two married six months after their first meeting and began their life together .
