The Center of the American West at the University of Colorado at Boulder will present two lectures by renowned nature writer Terry Tempest Williams on Nov. 2 in Denver and Nov. 3 on the CU-Boulder campus.
Both talks are free and open to the public.
Williams, the center's 2000 Distinguished Lecturer, will speak on "Homework: The Art of Inhabitation," at 7 p.m. Nov. 2 at the Denver Public Library in room B2 of the Conference Center. Those attending should use the library's west entrance.
Her talk is co-sponsored by the Denver Public Library.
Williams also will lecture at 7 p.m. Nov. 3 in the Glenn Miller Ballroom of the University Memorial Center on the CU-Boulder campus. A public reception will follow.
Books will be available for sale and Williams will sign books at both events.
A fifth-generation Mormon from Salt Lake City, Williams is perhaps best known for her 1991 book, "Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place," which is considered a classic in American nature writing. In a review when it was published, the San Francisco Chronicle wrote, "There has never been a book like 'Refuge' . . . utterly original."
"Refuge" chronicles the enormous rise of the Great Salt Lake and the flooding of the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge in 1983, alongside her mother's diagnosis with ovarian cancer, believed to have been caused by radioactive fallout from nuclear tests in the Nevada desert in the 1950s and 1960s.
Her other books include "An Unspoken Hunger," "Desert Quartet," "Coyote's Canyon" and two children's books. Her work has been widely anthologized and has appeared in The New Yorker, The Nation, Outside and Audubon, among other national and international publications.
Williams has served on the Governing Council of the Wilderness Society and was a member of the western team for the President's Council for Sustainable Development. She is currently on the advisory board of the National Parks and Conservation Association, The Nature Conservancy and the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance.
Williams was recently inducted into the Rachel Carson Honor Roll and has received the National Wildlife Federation's Conservation Award for Special Achievement. In 1999, she received "The Spirit of the West" award from the Mountain-Plains Booksellers Association for Special Literary Achievement. She also has been recognized by the Mormon Arts and Letters Association and honored by Physicians for Social Responsibility for "distinguished contributions in literature, ecology, and advocacy for an environmentally sustainable world."
The University Memorial Center is located at the corner of Broadway and Euclid Avenue on the CU-Boulder campus. Pay parking is available just east of the building in the Euclid Avenue Autopark.
The mission of the CU-Boulder Center of the American West is to explore the distinctive character and issues of the region and to help Westerners become well-informed, participating citizens in their communities.
For more information call (303) 492-4879 or visit the center's Web site at .