December 11, 2002
Contact: George Yatchisin
(805) 893-3494
e-mail: yatchisin-g@ sa.ucsb.edu
Acclaimed writer and environmentalist Rick Bass to read from his award-winning work at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History
Summary Facts:
- Rick Bass
- An Afternoon with the Author
- An award-winning writer whose work frequently appears in The Best American Short Stories annual
- Co-presented by Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History and UCSB Arts & Lectures
- Sunday, January 12
- 3 pm / Fleischmann Auditorium, Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History, 2559 Puesta del Sol Road, Santa Barbara
- General public $10, UCSB students & SBMNH members $8
- Tickets/Information: UCSB Arts & Lectures at 893-3535 or the SB Museum of Natural History at 682-4711
Rick Bass, the author of sixteen books including In the Loyal Mountains, Colter: The True Story of the Best Dog I Ever Had, and the recent collection The Hermit’s Story, will read from his work in a special “Afternoon with the Author” on Sunday, January 12 at 3 pm at Fleischmann Auditorium, Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History, 2559 Puesta del Sol Road, Santa Barbara.
A winner of both the O. Henry Prize and a Pushcart Prize, Rick Bass writes fiction and nonfiction that evinces his love of the wilderness and his desire to protect the environment. Born in Texas, he now lives on a remote ranch in the still pristine Yaak Valley of northern Montana. George Plimpton, who frequently publishes Bass’s work in The Paris Review, claims, “Few writers can fuse their passion for nature with the fictive form—and with such skill.”
Rick Bass’s latest book The Hermit’s Story (Houghton Mifflin) collects ten pieces of his short fiction, several of which have appeared in the annual issues of The Best American Short Stories. Many of the tales situate a crisis of human emotion in the immensity of the natural world. The title story, for instance, describes an incredible, mystical journey by two characters and a pack of dogs under the ice of a lake that had at first frozen and then drained, creating an eerily beautiful ice-ceilinged cave. The Los Angeles Times writes, “An affirming, resounding collection, The Hermit’s Story reveals Bass as a master craftsman, sparkling in the diamond-motes of his descriptions and the rawness of the human heart.”
Since 1992 Bass also has been an environmental activist fighting to preserve the pristine beauty of his home, the half-million-acre Yaak Valley. This remote area near the Canadian border has merely 150 human residents, but untold numbers of elk, deer, grizzly bears, cougars and other animals, particularly in its 175,000 roadless acres. Bass has worked with the Montana Wilderness Association to halt clear-cutting in the Yaak, and to form stewardship councils made up of local residents so people can have a say in logging practices.
Most of his writing, from The Book of Yaak to Where the Sea Used to Be, draws on this Montana landscape for inspiration while making the case for leaving this awesome wilderness wild. In an interview Bass discussed his mix of art and activism: “I’m just trying to put out brush fires. I’m standing there with a paintbrush in one hand and a bucket of water in the other hand. And if there’s no fire around, I’ll paint a pretty picture; but if a fire’s burning, I’ve got to dump water on it. So I do separate the didactic or political writings from the art, totally. It’s hard to do, but I try.”
This reading is presented by UCSB Arts & Lectures and the SB Museum of Natural History. It is part of an on-going collaboration featuring major writers whose work expresses strong ties to nature; some of the previous presenters in the series were W.S. Merwin, T.C. Boyle, Gretel Ehrlich, Terry Tempest Williams, David Quammen and Mark Plotkin. Courtesy of the UCSB Bookstore, books by Rick Bass will be available for purchase and signing at the event.
Ticket prices are $10 for the general public and $8 for UCSB students and SBMNH members. Tickets are on sale in advance or may be purchased the afternoon of the reading, if available, beginning at 2 pm at the SB Museum of Natural History.
For tickets or more information,
call UCSB Arts & Lectures at (805) 893-3535
or the SB Museum of Natural History at (805) 682-4711.
Editor: For photos, please call
George Yatchisin at (805) 893-3494.