Persisting Against All Odds with Terry Tempest Williams and Parker J. Palmer

Terry Tempest Williams has been called “a citizen writer,” a writer who speaks and speaks out eloquently on behalf of an ethical stance toward life. A naturalist and fierce advocate for freedom of speech, she has consistently shown us how environmental issues are social issues that ultimately become matters of justice. “So here is my question,” she asks, “what might a different kind of power look like, feel like, and can power be redistributed equitably even beyond our own species?”

Williams, like her writing, cannot be categorized. She has testified before Congress on women’s health issues, been a guest at the White House, has camped in the remote regions of Utah and Alaska wildernesses and worked as “a barefoot artist” in Rwanda.

Known for her impassioned and lyrical prose, Terry Tempest Williams is the author of the environmental literature classics 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; Finding Beauty in a Broken World; When Women Were Birds; Erosion: Essays of Undoing; The Hour of Land: A Personal Topography of America’s National Parks; and The Story of My Heart by Richard Jeffries, as rediscovered by Brooke Williams and Terry Tempest Williams. She has collaborated with photographer Fazal Sheikh on The Moon Is Behind Us and Thirst, Great Salt Lake (Fazal Sheikh Archive, November 5, 2024); and with artist Mary Frank on Trilogy, comprised of the individual volumes: A Burning Testament, What My Body Knows, and We Are Not Alone. She wrote the introductory essay for A Wild Promise by Allen Crawford and also wrote text to accompany woodblock prints by Gaylord Schanilec for the fine press book Oracle Bones. Her new book is The Glorians: Visitations from the Holy Ordinary (Grove Atlantic, March 3, 2026). Kirkus calls it “An impassioned defense of interconnectedness.”

Learn more about Terry and her work here.

This event will be recorded and made available for viewing immediately after the event for everyone who has registered. After a month, we will share the recording publicly on the CCR website.

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If you are expecting a copy of one or both of the books, those will be shipped or emailed to you after the event and will be arriving from Moon Palace, an independent bookstore in Minneapolis, MN.