Award-winning writer-conservationist-activist Terry Tempest Williams cast a quiet spell on members of the Wesleyan and greater Middletown communities during a reading and book-signing reception at Memorial Chapel on March 1, at the invitation of Wesleyan’s College of the Environment.
Wesleyan’s Memorial Chapel was the perfect venue for an evening with award-winning author-conservationist-activist Terry Tempest Williams at on March 1.
Williams is the author of the environmental literature classic “Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place,” as well as “When Women Were Birds,” “Finding Beauty in a Broken World,” “The Hour of Land: A Personal Topography of America’s National Parks,” and other critically acclaimed works.
A noted conservationist and activist, Williams is the recipient of the Wilderness Society’s Robert Marshall Award, the Sierra Club’s John Muir Award and the 2017 Audubon New York Award for Environmental Writing, among other awards. She is currently the writer-in-residence at the Harvard Divinity School, where she explores the spiritual implications of climate change.
Drawing on the current theme of the COE Think Tank, Williams centered her readings and remarks on how humans relate to and value the non-human part of the world.
Barry Chernoff, director of the COE and the Robert F. Schumann Professor of Environmental Studies, welcomed the audience of Wesleyan and greater Middletown community members to the March 1 event.
Fiona McLeod ’19, a COE fellow and American Studies major from Berkeley, California, introduced the author.
“Thank you, Terry, for always reminding us how land, family, beauty, and hope are tied to one another. You are an inspiration to me, and to so many others,” shared McLeod.
Isaac Klimasmith ’20 read “Wild Geese,” by Mary Oliver, at the invitation of Williams, after the two discovered their shared love of the poem.
Klimasmith is a COE fellow and biology major pursuing certificates in both environmental studies and informatics and modeling.
The author embraces Antonio Machado-Allison, the Menakka and Essel Bailey ’66 Distinguished Visiting Scholar in the College of the Environment. Machado is the Emeritus Full Professor of the Central University of Venezuela.
After the reading, Williams signed copies of her books for an appreciative crowd, including COE faculty member Marcela Oteiza, associate professor of theater.
Middletown community member Nur Fitzpatrick holds a signed copy of “Finding Beauty in a Broken World,” by Terry Tempest Williams.
Award-winning writer-conservationist-activist Terry Tempest Williams cast a quiet spell on members of the Wesleyan and greater Middletown communities during a reading and book-signing reception at Memorial Chapel on March 1, at the invitation of Wesleyan’s College of the Environment.
