Milkweed Presents Gary Paul Nabhan & Terry Tempest Williams

Join Milkweed Editions as we present Gary Paul Nabhan and Terry Tempest Williams at Open Book. Both authors will read from their newest collections, engage in conversation and audience Q+A, and book signings. See below for information on the newest books. Space will be limited, so please register here and let us know if you can’t make it.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Gary Paul Nabhan is a celebrated ethnobotanist and biocultural conservationist whose groundbreaking work has advanced ecological restoration, pollinator recovery, and Indigenous food revitalization. A MacArthur “Genius” Fellow, John Burroughs Medal recipient, and James Beard Award winner, he has been recognized nationally for his contributions to both conservation and food culture. He lives in Patagonia, Arizona, where he continues to work at the intersection of ecology and community.

Terry Tempest Williams is the award-winning author of seventeen books of creative nonfiction, including the environmental classic, Refuge – An Unnatural History of Family and Place. Among her other books are Leap; Finding Beauty in a Broken World; When Women Were Birds; The Hour of Land – A Personal Topography of America’s National Parks; and Erosion – Essays of Undoing. Her work has been translated and anthologized worldwide. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts & Letters and is currently the writer-in-residence at the Harvard Divinity School. She divides her time between Cambridge, Massachusetts and Castle Valley, Utah.

ABOUT THE BOOKS

From acclaimed agrarian activist and ethnobotanist Gary Paul Nabhan, Water in the Desert is a profoundly inspiring account of interspecies belonging, collaborative conservation, and the sacred work of caring for the earth.

“I went looking for water in the desert and found that the world was teaching me how to listen.”

Celebrated as a “world visionary” (Utne Reader) and our “lyrical poet of biodiversity” (Mother Jones), Gary Paul Nabhan has authored dozens of books and been awarded a MacArthur “genius grant.” In Water in the Desert, he traces the fascinating story of his life, offering in the process a vision for cultural renewal.

As a Lebanese-American boy growing up in the dunes along Lake Michigan’s southern shore, where school is excruciating and symptoms of neurodivergence are diagnosed as disabilities, Nabhan finds refuge and revelation in the natural world. In college, he gravitates to the thinkers now associated with the dawn of ecology as a discipline, writes poetry, and travels to Ecuador and Sonora, Mexico, where he first encounters the Indigenous communities that will come to play a significant role in his life and work. His interest in earth-based spiritual practices leads him to take vows as an Ecumenical Franciscan Brother, which reminds him that “the earth itself—creation, for that matter—was the original scripture.” Late in life, he returns to the land of his Arab ancestors, where he discovers a vision of kinship and climate resilience grounded in faith and ecology. And finally, when construction of the southern border wall begins, he collaborates with religious leaders to affirm Indigenous rights to the sacred places threatened by construction.

At once a refreshing account of a pathbreaking scientist-activist’s kinship with other species and cultures and an inspiring guide to the deeply collaborative ethic and practice of care required to flourish in kinship on Earth, Water in the Desert is a book for our time.

From the acclaimed nature writer and New York Times bestselling author Terry Tempest Williams comes THE GLORIANS: Visitations from the Holy Ordinary, a revelatory work of narrative nonfiction exploring beauty, climate change, and transformative moments of hope in a world beset by uncertainty. Whether we believe it or not, rapid change is upon us. I am searching for grace.

In this time of political fragility, climate chaos, and seeking hope wherever we can find its glimmer, Terry Tempest Williams introduces us to the Glorians. They are not distant deities, but the ordinary, often overlooked presences—animal, plant, memory, moment—that reveal our shared vulnerability and interconnectedness with the natural world. The Glorians can be as small as an ant ferrying a coyote willow blossom to its queen or as commonplace as the night sky. But what they can collectively teach us—about the radical act of attending to beauty and carrying forward against all odds—is immense.