Naturalist and author Terry Tempest Williams will discuss her new book The Hour of Land: A Personal Topography of America’s National Parks at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, April 12, at UCSB Campbell Hall, hosted by UCSB Arts & Lectures.

A fierce dvocate for freedom of speech, Williams has been called “a citizen writer” who speaks out on behalf of an ethical stance toward life, environmental issues and matters of justice.

In 2014, on the 50th anniversary of The Wilderness Act, she received the Sierra Club’s prestigious John Muir Award for distinguished leadership in American conservation.

The Hour of Land: A Personal Topography of America’s National Parks, was published in honor of the centennial of the National Park Service. It is a collection of essays that considers the meaning and role of the national parks.

Part memoir, part natural history and part social critique, her personal writings are illustrated by photographs of the parks by Ansel Adams, Richard Avedon and others.

Williams also wrote Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place; as well as An Unspoken Hunger: Stories from the Field; Desert Quartet; Leap; The Open Space of Democracy; Finding Beauty in a Broken World; and When Women Were Birds.

She wrote The Story of My Heart by Richard Jeffries, as rediscovered by Brooke Williams and Terry Tempest Williams, in which she and her husband Brooke expand upon Jeffries’ 1883 book. She is also a columnist for The Progressive magazine.
 
Williams 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.

A chronicler of the American West, Williams was raised in Utah and is a longtime resident of the state. She recently purchased energy leases for more than 1,000 acres of wilderness near her home in Castle Valley.

Asked by an official whether the motivation in buying the leases was in fact for energy exploration, she is reported to have answered: “Yes. You can’t define what energy is for us. Our energy development is fueling a movement. Keep it in the ground.”
 
In 2006, Williams received the Robert Marshall Award from The Wilderness Society, their highest honor given to an American citizen. In 2009, she was featured in Ken Burns’ PBS series on the national parks.
 
Williams is currently the Provostial Scholar at Dartmouth College.

Williams talk is presented by UCSB Arts & Lectures in collaboration with Channel Islands National Park and the UCSB Natural Reserve System. Part of The Lynda and Bruce Thematic Learning Initiative: Creating a Better World.
 
Tickets are $20 for the general public and free for all students (valid student ID required).
 
For more information, call UCSB Arts & Lectures, 893-3535, or visit www.ArtsAndLectures.UCSB.edu.

— Caitlin O’Hara for UCSB Arts & Lectures.