Monday, January 03, 2000

WILMINGTON, NC ­ An articulate defender of her native Utah's wilderness, author Terry Tempest Williams will read from her works at 8 p.m., Friday, Jan. 14, in UNCW's Kenan Auditorium with a reception and booksigning to follow. This event, sponsored by The King's Road Writers Series, is free and open to the public.

Williams is the author of five books including Desert Quartet: An Erotic Landscape, An Unspoken Hunger: Stories from the Field and Refuge: An Unnatural History of Place.

Influenced by "her biases of gender, geography and culture," Williams said she writes "as a woman whose ideas have been shaped by the Colorado Plateau and the Great Basin. These ideas are then sorted out through the prism of my culture ­ Mormon. Those tenets of family and community that I see at the heart of that culture are then articulated through story."

During January, Williams will conduct a nonfiction writing workshop in the UNCW Creative Writing Department's MFA Program.

"I was very pleased that Terry wants to take her workshop students on an environmental field trip with faculty and students in the marine science program, possibly aboard one of the boats operated by the Center for Marine Science Research," said Phil Furia, UNCW professor of creative writing. This would be a wonderful way for two of UNCW's top programs -- marine science and creative writing -- to do something together."

Williams, the Shirley Sutton Thomas Visiting Professor of English at the University of Utah, received a Lannan Literary Fellowship in creative nonfiction along with a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1997. She also received the National Wildlife Federation's National Conservation Award for Special Achievement.

In 1995, as a representative of the Utah Museum of Natural History, Williams protested the Utah Public Lands Management Act before the Senate Subcommittee on Forest and Public Lands Management.

Developed to offer distinguished literary events to the Wilmington community, The King's Road Writers Series is made possible through funding from The King's Road, which offers cards, stationery and gifts in Barclay Commons at the corner of Shipyard and Independence Boulevards near Henry's.

For more information, contact the UNCW Creative Writing Department at 910/962-7063.