Anyone who's walked in the wilderness knows there's risk involved. But for Terry Tempest Williams, the risk is often four-fold: physical, emotional, spiritual and professional.
Williams takes chances - both in the wilds and on the page. And on Wednesday, Nov. 19, at 7:30 p.m. at the Joseph Smith Memorial Building, she will speak at the Association of Mormon Letters fund-raiser about that untamed frontier of writing, where the "cultural editor" in each of us decides if we should stay put or forge ahead.Tickets are $10. They can be purchased at the door, at the King's English, A Woman's Place, the BYU bookstore or by calling 378-5226 in Provo.
It will be a big week for the author. Williams usually "hibernates" each winter to write, but next week she'll also be at Utah Valley State College on Nov. 20 and 21 to discuss religion and the environment.
Her Mormon Letters speech will tackle the tricky business of writing freely within a cultural framework.
"Virginia Woolf talks about the `angel' - the self-imposed critic - that sits on our shoulder as we write," Williams said in a Deseret News interview this week. "Woolf calls it the `angel in the house.' I'll be discussing how we work with that critic as artists. I'll also be talking about the need for open and sustained conversation, dialogue that is `organic' - that is, dialogue that comes from the bottom up, not from the top down."
But more than anything else, she says, she'll stress the importance of embracing questions instead of answers. And over the years Williams has embraced more questions than most; questions about ethics, spirituality, life and death that are posed in her books "Pieces of White Shell," "Refuge," "Desert Quartet" and "Coyote's Canyon."
Williams has received many awards for her work, including a Guggenheim grant. And though the essay is her stock in trade, she has also written short stories, a libretto for an oratorio, newspaper columns and children's books. Her trademark is a dead-on voice that is true, informed and congenial. This, for instance, from her book "Pieces of White Shell."
Silence. That is time you are hearing. We are in Anasazi country. This is a place where canyon walls rise upward like praying hands. Veins of water run between them. You may choose to walk here, ankle deep in the midst of chubs and minnows. If you wish, you can brace your hands flush against either side of the slickrock and fancy yourself pushing down walls. Look up. The sky is a blue ribbon.
A naturalist with a knack for seeing the supernatural hidden in the wilds, Williams has a feel for the transcendent that's Emersonian in scope and honesty.
Back in 1983 - before her writing career took off - she spoke to the Deseret News about her approach.
"The key," she said then, "is to see nature in a fresh light, see predictable things in an unpredictable way."
In 15 years she hasn't lost her peculiar - and at times discomforting - vision. Linda Sillitoe has listed some of her gifts as a writer: "an uncanny harmony with the natural world, a spirit open to interior and exterior experience and a bold curiosity combined with a sensitivity for all life."
This week, Williams will be offering those gifts to the reading community of Utah.