Terry Tempest Williams

When Women Were Birds: Fifty-four Variations on Voice by Terry Tempest Williams Thursday, May 2nd, 7:00pm at Longfellow Books

"I am leaving you all my journals, but you must promise me you won’t look at them until after I’m gone."

This is what Terry Tempest Williams’s mother, the matriarch of a large Mormon clan in northern Utah, told her a week before she died. It was a shock to Williams to discover that her mother had kept journals. But not as much of a shock as it was to discover that the three shelves of journals were all blank. In fifty-four short chapters, Williams recounts memories of her mother, ponders her own faith, and contemplates the notion of absence and presence art and in our world. When Women Were Birds is a carefully crafted kaleidoscope that keeps turning around the question: What does it mean to have a voice? "A lyrical, timeless book that rewards quiet, attentive reading—a rare thing." -The Huffington Post Join us to meet award-winning author, Terry Tempest Williams, hear her read from this beautiful book of essays and get your books signed. As always, Longfellow Books events are free and open to the public.

Location: Street: One Monument Way City: Portland, Province: Maine Postal Code: 04101-4078 Country: United States (added from IndieBound)… (more)

5PM SATURDAY, MARCH 16 Terry Tempest Williams: When Women Were Birds Legendary conservationist and award-winning author Terry Tempest Williams presents her new book When Women Were Birds: Fifty-Four Variations on Voice.

"I am leaving you all my journals, but you must promise me you won't look at them until after I'm gone," said Terry Tempest Williams's mother, the matriarch of a large Mormon clan in northern Utah, a week before she died. It was a shock to Williams to discover that her mother had kept journals. But not as much of a shock as it was to discover that the three shelves of journals were all blank. In fifty-four short chapters, Williams recounts memories of her mother, ponders her own faith, and contemplates the notion of absence and presence in art and in our world. When Women Were Birds asks - what does it mean to have a voice?

EVENT DETAILS Event ticket (admits two) is free when you purchase When Women Were Birds from Changing Hands Bookstore. Letter groups (printed on top of ticket) will be called at 4pm to fill seats and designated standing room. If available, seating and standing room opens to those without tickets at 4:45pm. Space cannot be guaranteed for late arrivals. Booksigning line forms by assigned letter group after the presentation. Those without tickets may get their books signed after ticket-holders, if time allows. Event details may be subject to unannounced changes. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Terry Tempest Williams is the award-winning author of Finding Beauty in a Broken World, The Open Space of Democracy, An Unspoken Hunger, Leap, and Red: Passion and Patience in the Desert. She is also a conservationist and activist who has testified before Congress on women's health, protested with Code Pink, and been a guest of the White House. She is a recipent of the Robert Marshall Award from The Wildnerness Society, a Distinguished Achievement Award from the Western American Literature Association, a Wallace Stegner Award, and a Guggenheim Fellowship in creative non-fiction She lives in Castle Valley, Utah but makes annual trips to Maine. Released in hardcover in April of last year, When Women Were Birds appeared on many of 2012's "Best Book of the Year" lists and was hailed as "brilliant, meditative, and full of surprises, wisdom and wonder" by Anne Lamott, bestselling author of Imperfect Birds.

CAN'T MAKE IT? If you'd like a signed book from any of our author events, please call us at 480.730.0205 or click "add to cart" below (let us know in the "order comments" field to whom you'd like your book(s) personalized) to pre-pay and we'll have one or more copies signed and reserved for you. We also ship anywhere in the United States and to most international locations (extra charges apply).

Location: Street: 6428 S McClintock Dr. City: Tempe, Province: Arizona Postal Code: 85283 Country: United States (added from IndieBound)… (more)

When Women Were Birds

When Terry Tempest Williams’s mother told her, “I am leaving you all my journals, but you must promise me you won’t look at them until after I’m gone,” she was shocked to learn that her mother had kept journals. But not as much of a shock as what she found when the time came to open them, because they were all blank.When Women Were Birds is a lyrical and caring meditation on the mystery of her mother's action, ultimately turning around the question, “What does it mean to have a voice?” Terry Tempest Williams is the author of fourteen books, including Refuge, Leap, The Open Space of Democracy, and, most recently, Finding Beauty in a Broken World. The recipient of a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship and a Lannan Literary Fellowship in creative nonfiction, she divides her time between Castle Valley, Utah, and Moose, Wyoming.

“The writing of Terry Tempest Williams is brilliant, meditative, and full of surprises, wisdom, and wonder. She’s one of those writers who changes peoples’ lives by encouraging attention and a slow, patient awakening.” -Anne Lamott, author of Operating Instructions and Help, Thanks, Wow

Location: Street: 5233 N. Clark St. City: Chicago, Province: Illinois Postal Code: 60640-2122 Country: United States (added from IndieBound)… (more)

The beloved author of Refuge returns with a work that explodes and startles, illuminates and celebrates.

“The writing of Terry Tempest Williams is brilliant, meditative, and full of surprises, wisdom, and wonder. She’s one of those writers who changes peoples’ lives by encouraging attention and a slow, patient awakening.”--Anne Lamott, author of Help, Thanks, Wow Readers of Williams’s iconic and unconventional memoir, Refuge, well remember Terry Tempest Williams’ mother. She was one of a large Mormon clan in northern Utah who developed cancer as a result of the nuclear testing in nearby Nevada. It was a shock to Williams to discover that her mother had kept journals. But not as much of a shock as what she found when the time came to read them. In When Women Were Birds: Fifty-four Variations on Voice (available in paperback, March 5, 2013), Terry Tempest Williams tells what she discovered in those books:

“They were exactly where she said they would be: three shelves of beautiful cloth-bound books... I opened the first journal. It was empty. I opened the second journal. It was empty. I opened the third. It too was empty... Shelf after shelf after shelf, all of my mother’s journals were blank.”

In fifty-four chapters that unfold like a series of yoga poses, each with its own logic and beauty, Williams creates a lyrical and caring meditation of the mystery of her mother's journals. When Women Were Birds is a kaleidoscope that keeps turning around the question “What does it mean to have a voice?”

“Here, readers get a Terry Tempest Williams who is at the top of her game, the master of her craft . . . a gift from a writer who knows how to split the world open.”--Cheryl Strayed, author of Wild This event will be held in the Weyerhaeuser Chapel, on the campus of Macalester College. ----

Terry Tempest Williams is the award-winning author of fourteen books, including Leap, An Unspoken Hunger, Refuge, and Finding Beauty in a Broken World. She divides her time between Castle Valley, Utah, and Moose, Wyoming.

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A performance of Wild Mercy, by Emmy Award-winning St Paul composer Steve Heitzeg, will kick off this spring’s reading by Terry Tempest Williams.

Steve Heitzeg’s Wild Mercy--a setting of Terry Tempest Williams’ poem of the same name, written in honor of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge--is the third movement from his song cycle Wild Songs for soprano and two percussionists. Wild Songs was commissioned by The Schubert Club in honor of its 125th anniversary, as part of the Wild Music Exhibition at the Science Museum of Minnesota in 2007. Scored for soprano, Yupik frame drum and two Beluga whale jawbones, the austere Wild Mercy is a plea to preserve the ANWR and nature. The instruments used are from that region, including two Beluga whale jawbones from a stranded whale which are on loan from the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration and the National Marine Fisheries Service. “It is an honor to set these powerful and prophetic words of Terry Tempest Williams to music,” says Heitzeg. “Her vision and commitment to the environment is inspiring.” Performing Wild Mercy will be the acclaimed soprano Polly Butler Cornelius, and renowned percussionists Heather Barringer and Erik Barsness. Polly Butler Cornelius teaches at Elon University in North Carolina. She is no stranger to the international stage and performs frequently in Italy and at major venues across the U.S. She is in demand as a soloist for opera, oratorio and song recital, where she specializes in new music by living composers. Heather Barringer is an innovative percussionist and artistic co-director of the groundbreaking new music ensemble Zeitgeist. Erik Barsness is a prolific percussionist and co-director of the contemporary music group Ensemble 61. Emmy Award-winning composer Steve Heitzeg is recognized for his evocative and lyrical scores written in support of social and environmental justice issues. His music is performed by leading orchestras and ensembles, and conductors from Marin Alsop to Osmo Vänskä have conducted his works. Heitzeg has set other works of Terry Tempest Williams including most recently her I Pray to the Birds, commissioned by Beth and Nate Kellar Long and premiered by the Minnesota Chorale (Kathy Saltzman Romey, Artistic Director) in 2010.

Location: Street: 38 S Snelling Ave City: Saint Paul, Province: Minnesota Postal Code: 55105 Country: United States (added from IndieBound)… (more)

A Kansas City Star Best Book of the Year "Brilliant, meditative, and full of surprises, wisdom, and wonder."—Ann Lamott, author of Imperfect Birds "I am leaving you all my journals, but you must promise me you won’t look at them until after I’m gone." This is what Terry Tempest Williams’s mother, the matriarch of a large Mormon clan in northern Utah, told her a week before she died. It was a shock to Williams to discover that her mother had kept journals. But not as much of a shock as it was to discover that the three shelves of journals were all blank. In fifty-four short chapters, Williams recounts memories of her mother, ponders her own faith, and contemplates the notion of absence and presence in art and in our world. When Women Were Birds is a carefully crafted kaleidoscope that keeps turning around the question: What does it mean to have a voice?

About the Author Terry Tempest Williams is the award-winning author of fourteen books, including Leap, An Unspoken Hunger, Refuge, and, most recently, Finding Beauty in a Broken World. She divides her time between Castle Valley, Utah, and Moose, Wyoming.

Location: Street: 55 Haywood St City: Asheville, Province: North Carolina Postal Code: 28801 Country: United States (added from IndieBound)… (more)

Motherhood by the Book is led by Claire, VB staffer, mother of a toddler, and stepmother of an adolescent.

The book group meets on the second Sunday of every month at 2pm in the Book Fare Cafe for an hour of spirited discussion of books that celebrate the trials, tribulations, and rewards of motherhood, and what it means to be a mother. This group is by no means exclusive to moms with kids still at home, but much of the selection may be geared toward issues that those moms face. We will read fiction, non-fiction, and parenting books.

Sun, Jan 13, 2pm

Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place by Terry Tempest Williams

In the spring of 1983 Terry Tempest Williams learned that her mother was dying of cancer. That same season, The Great Salt Lake began to rise to record heights, threatening the herons, owls, and snowy egrets that Williams, a poet and naturalist, had come to gauge her life by.

Location: Street: 1200 11th St City: Bellingham, Province: Washington Postal Code: 98225-7015 Country: United States (added from IndieBound)… (more)

We could not be more thrilled to be inviting Terry Tempest Williams back to Durango for an event in celebration of her new book When Women Were Birds, a lyrical meditation on death, motherhood, the natural world and voice that will stop you in your tracks with its powerful beauty.

This event will take place at the Durango Arts Center, so we can accomodate a larger crowd. THIS EVENT IS NOW SOLD OUT AND TICKETS WILL NOT BE AVAILABLE AT THE DOOR.

Doors and cash bar open at 6:00. Book signing to follow presentation.

“I thought I was writing a book about voice. I thought I would proclaim as a woman that we must speak the truth of our lives at all costs.” —Terry Tempest Williams in When Women Were Birds Twenty years ago, Terry Tempest Williams published her iconic book Refuge, a juxtaposition of natural history and haunting, personal tragedy. Written just five years after her mother’s death from ovarian cancer, it was partly about the flooding of Great Salt Lake, which in turned flooded a bird Refuge. In large part, however, it was about the death of seven women in her family from cancer (there had been nine mastectomies, as well). The cancer was linked to exposure to the fallout of atomic bomb tests in the 1950s. It’s often placed in the company of classics such as Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring and Marilynne Robinson’s Mother Country. Before her death, Williams’s mother gave Terry her journals. Later, when Williams went to read them, longing to hear her mother’s voice again, she found each one was blank. Through When Women Were Birds, Williams meditates on why her mother might have left the journals unfilled. What did that signify to her mother? What was her mother telling her? But what I realize . . . is that I will never be able to say what is in my heart, because words fail us, because it is in our nature to protect, because there are times when what is public and what is private must be discerned. There is comfort in keeping what is sacred inside us not as a secret, but as a prayer. In fifty-four chapters that unfold like a series of yoga poses, each with its own logic and beauty, Williams creates a lyrical and caring meditation on voice and the strength found in silences. Williams says that she wrote Refuge from the point of view of a daughter; she wrote When Women Were Birds from the point of view of a woman. It is the book, she says, she was meant to write. I hear my mother’s voice. In the emptiness of this beloved landscape that has embraced me all my life, I hold my mother’s journals as another paradox, journals without words that create a narrative of the imagination. My mother’s gift is the Mystery. Each day I begin with the empty page. Terry Tempest Williams is the award-winning author of fourteen books, including Leap, An Unspoken Hunger, Refuge, and, most recently, Finding Beauty in a Broken World. She divides her time between Castle Valley, Utah, and Moose, Wyoming. Autho photo by Marion Ettinger

Location: Street: Durango Arts Center Additional: 802 E. 2nd Ave. City: Durango, Province: Colorado Postal Code: 81301-5122 Country: United States (added from IndieBound)… (more)

Join Village Books, the Whatcom Community College Foundation and North Cascades Institute in welcoming renowned author Terry Tempest Williams for her new book When Women Were Birds: Fifty-Four Variations on Voice. She will be reading from her new book at Bellingham High School. Doors open at 6:30pm and the event will begin promptly at 7pm. Tickets for this event are $5 and are available at Village Books and BrownPaperTickets.com. Twenty years ago, Terry Tempest Williams published her iconic book Refuge, a juxtaposition of natural history and haunting, personal tragedy. Written just five year after the death of Williams's mother, Refuge posits the seven deaths of women in her family from cancer (and nine mastectomies), all likely the result of exposure to the fallout of atomic bomb tests in the 1950s, against the flooding of both the Great Salt Lake and a bird Refuge. Refuge transformed tragedy into a document of renewal and spiritual grace.

Before her death, Williams's mother gave Terry her journals. Later, when Williams went to read them, longing to hear her mother's voice again, she found each one was blank. Through When Women Were Birds, Williams meditates on why her mother might have left the journals unfilled. What did that signify to her mother? What was her mother telling her?

In fifty-four chapters that unfold like a series of yoga poses, each with its own logic and beauty, Williams creates a lyrical and caring meditation on voice and the strength found in silences. Williams says that she wrote Refuge from the point of view of a daughter; she wrote When Women Were Birds from the point of view of a woman. It is the book, she says, she was meant to write.

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 classic, 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; and The Open Space of Democracy. Her book, Finding Beauty in a Broken World, was published in October 2008 by Pantheon Books. Her next book, When Women Were Birds, will be published in Spring 2012 by Farrar Straus & Giroux. She is a columnist for the magazine The Progressive. Terry divides her time between Castle Valley, Utah, and Moose, Wyoming with her husband.

Location: Street: 2020 Cornwall Ave. Additional: Bellingham High School Theater City: Bellingham, Province: Washington Postal Code: 98225 Country: United States (added from IndieBound)… (more)

Terry Tempest Williams promotes When Women Were Birds: Fifty-four Variations on Voice.

Terry Tempest Williams is the award-winning author of fourteen books, including Leap, An Unspoken Hunger, Refuge, and, most recently, Finding Beauty in a Broken World. Williams will read from and sign her new book When Women Were Birds: Fifty-four Variations on Voice ($23.00 FS&G). This book “is a wise and beautiful and intelligent book, written for the women, men, and children of our times. It vibrates with the earned honesty of a great soul. It is a gift, passed on to readers with the same spirit of love and generosity with which it was first given to the author by her mother. A remarkable journey, a remarkable story.” —Rick Bass, author of The Wild Marsh (jpmoore)… (more)