This lecture is
made possible by the generous support of Nana Lampton and presented in
collaboration with the Filson Historical Society. A reception will be held from 5:00-5:55, with the lecture following at 6:00 pm.
For acclaimed
writer and environmental activist Rick Bass, it can be wearying to dwell
relentlessly upon the broken, fragmented, the dead and the dying, and the
doomed-to-extinction. Activism is a necessary part of the environmental
movement, but so is the time-honored celebration of the beauty that inspires
us.
Spanning his
storied career, these new and selected essays attempt to take a brief step to
the side, away from lamentation and prescription, and to inhabit, as deeply as
possible, the greater depths of beauty in-the-moment. With Every Great
Breath ranges from the extremely local—a long-form essay about the
community affected by the largest Superfund site in U.S. history, in Libby, Montana—to
the far-flung: the Galapagos, Namibia, and Alaska. Throughout, Bass offers a
portrait of our planet that is always alert to its wonders, even in the face of
environmental crisis.
Rick Bass is the author of more
than thirty books. He is a winner of the Story Prize, the James Jones First
Novel Fellowship, a PEN/Nelson Algren Award Special Citation for fiction, and a
finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award.