Rick Bass

Rick Bass began his adult life with a geology degree in his hand, working the oil fields of the South, but his heart was always tuned to a different frequency—the silence of deep woods and the stories they hold. He made a dramatic pivot, leaving his work as a petroleum geologist to write and to immerse himself in the Yaak Valley of northwestern Montana, a place that would become his literary and spiritual home. His prose, whether in fiction like 'The Watch' or non-fiction like 'The Book of Yaak,' is charged with a physical intimacy with the natural world, detailing the lives of animals, the flow of rivers, and the threat of logging with equal passion. Bass became a central figure in environmental activism, fighting for the protection of roadless wilderness areas, often using his essays as both weapon and elegy. He writes and teaches with the conviction that paying close attention to a place is a form of love, and that telling its story is an act of necessary defense.