UNC Distinguished Writer in Residence to Hold Reading of New Work

A noted author and environmentalist will hold a reading Tuesday night on the UNC Campus.

Terry Tempest Williams is an author, environmentalist, and activist. She is also the 2015 Distinguished Writer-in-Residence at UNC.

Williams says, coming from the Western United States, North Carolina is a blast of nature.

“From the mountains, to the piedmont, to the coast, I don’t know of any state that has kind of stratigraphy of change,” she says. “I have such respect for the history that is here, the arts, [and] the music. I think it’s just a stunning place.

“And as a Westerner, it’s just extremely exotic. Seeing the dogwood, the forsythia, this is like going to Eden.”

Among the issues Williams says she holds near and dear to her heart is the accessibility of clean drinking water. She says she was thrilled to hear about UNC’s “Water in Our World” campaign.

“You hear the adage, ‘you don’t talk about politics or religion.’ In the West, you don’t talk about water,” she says. “It’s that controversial, and it’s that essential.”

Williams speaks not only of clean drinking water globally, but also domestically where she says she has seen fracking leave behind a trail of contaminated water.

“Coming from a state, and a neighboring state of Wyoming, where fracking has been going on for a long time, I can tell you the consequences are not pretty,” she says. “I know that it’s about jobs, and economies, and cheap energy. But the fact is there’s a town in Wyoming called Pavillion, and the simple story is this – they can no longer drink their water.”

Williams was a panelist on Monday afternoon for a discussion on the future of water in our world. She says conversation is a key to solving major problems we face as a society.

“I think that we are so polarized, that we have stopped listening to one another,” she says. “I think that if we can really have those hard conversations; look each other in the eye and say, ‘What concerns you? What do you care about? What binds us together?’ rather than what tears us apart.

“Then I think we can come to those essential facts that without water we do not exist.”

Williams will also hold a reading at 7:30 Tuesday evening in the auditorium of the Genome Sciences Building.

“I get nervous even thinking about it,” she says. “I will be reading new work about America’s national parks.”

The reading is free and open to the public.

Finally, Williams will be part of a panel discussing the role of naturalist in a world of environmental threats at 3:30 Wednesday afternoon. That panel will meet in Donovan Lounge.