seconds left. so on that note i want to thank everyone for tuning in pit whether you are tuning in live are tuning in later and want to thank you for fascinating conversation. ♪ ♪ >> you're watching book tv on cspan2. every weekend with the latest nonfiction books and authors. created by america's cable television company paid today were brought to you by these television companies who provide book tv to viewers as a public service. >> that evening everyone my name is connor moran i am the director of the wisconsin book festival. it has been a pleasure to be with you over 16 events over three days. typically we do 60 events over four days. i typically have to work on sunday. but i don't have to work tomorrow but this is a final event and i cannot think of someone i would rather have closest out then terry tempest williams. terry thinkest much for being here is new book is called

erosion. she is joined this evening by matt watts rothschild. the publisher of the magazine thank you matt for being here to moderate. and i will just tease everybody met has a book coming out. and when it comes out terry said she will return an interview matt about his become going to hold both of them to that promise and make it to all abuse you hold me to it it. as always i want to thank madison public library and that madison public library foundation for their incredible steadfast support of free cultural events like this to the wisconsin book festival. it has been eight years of doing this festival in seven months would be doing them virtually. we have had thousands of people come to virtual events. it is so heartwarming we were able to gather be with each other. contact about the things that are important to us in sharing this time. until i just want to say thank

you to all of you watching across wisconsin, across the country, and across the world heard and thank you terry for having written this book and be with us tonight. also i'll be at the end and where to turn over and terry. thank you so much and enjoy everyone. >> i just want to say thank you. it is wonderful to be back. i really appreciate everything you do for all of us. not just in this content. hi matt. >> hey terry and thanks connor. harry don't terry? >> i'm so thrilled to be in conversation with you. as you know i love you prefer the audience that doesn't know had the privilege of being one of matt's writers the most progressive smartest most sensitive, brilliant editor i have ever worked with. you are singular. and we share love of birds. and connor asked about, and i said yes and can i talk to

matt? >> the feeling is mutual. i love this book, erosion it's an incredible book. as you can tell he puts in yellow stickup post ups on it. can you set the stage and smoke i would love to. i ask you to read the spare graph in particular matt. i write to remember. it is dark, the son has yet to rise. a candle is lit on my desk. it is the last day of the year i'm unable to sleep. people often ask how we can save billions in lost. i don't know what to six at the world is so beautiful, even as it burns. even as love, even as we witness the ravaging of land and species in the brutal

injustices of deep division. as example five of the separation of families at the southern border. the blatant racism exposed in charlottesville or students encounter with an elder at the march in washington d.c. the erosion of democracy indecency feels like a lightning crack on the face of liberty. >> you wrestle with that in the remaining essays of this book. and trump cast a shadow over the book as he's cast a long shadow through half almost four years. we are just three weeks before the election, how are you feeling? what message do you have for us? i just think vote i just hope

it's the largest turnout ever. i am not taking anything for granted. living in utah you do not have that luxury. right now, not surprised it is 53% trump, the remaining provided. the community where we live is largely democratic and libertarian. i think that will go biden/harris. i am concerned. on one hand i think biden will win. but on the other hand we don't know what will be stolen, what antics trump is up to. i am counting the days. i just want trump out of my psyche. i think many of us do. he has cast a very large shadow over utah as you know with the national monument and the tribes here. it has been brutal. it is been brutal development as well. >> you and talk a little bit,

you are a tremendous advocate for protecting our public lands, what did he do there? in utah i was a >> dialogue has changed in the last decade. that campaign led by five native nations. they have taught us what it means to be good allies. and to really listen more deeply to what they have to say. clusters of it advocating which is a series of maces. as you know in 2016, december 28, barack obama heard there please. and it acted that 1906

antiquities act and establish the national monument. he saw it as a handshake across history honoring indigenous people. it was another is active trust and faith. it was also experimentation of taking indigenous knowledge, traditional knowledge and integrating it with western science. less than a year later, with donald trump as you know without setting foot on those lands having never seen those lands really not talking to any of the elders. gathered at by 85% and opened it up it open for business. it was a blow.

hopefully biden wins he will reinstate the original boundaries. but what has moved me so deeply is the tribes have said we are in ceremony. and i remember when i was talking to willie gray eyes is now county commissioner in utah i said willie what we do with our anger? he said it can no longer be about our anger. has to be about healing. that is really given me pause. and between you and me i thought gutfeld passive as an activist. and i said what you mean by healing? he said we have to go to the source of our pain. in other words if there is a splinter you do not take it out it will fester. and as of the source of pain is he never had an apology for

the united states government as a native nation. perhaps this is a path towards that. that is kind of an overview. to back you know this whole idea in the public lands it just strikes me, trump said at one place i'm a real estate developer. i look at everything and how can i make private money my friends make private money is not built on yet. something we own as a community, that we own as a democracy, that we own as a people together. the idea that there is a public good. it's too threatening for capitalism the ideology and the we don't need anything. you see that behind it or they give capitalism is one of the same?

>> i think it's just what you set a think it's agreed i think it is ignorance. i would say he should know better. he was from boston but he does not have a sense of what public lands are. he certainly does not have a relationship with the tribe. it is not made any effort to have those conversations. he came into office as senator many of us were hopeful the conservatives and the liberals. just the opposite. the far right came not to southern utah wearing a white hat. that is been disappointing. i think it's because he has no relationship with what public lands are. i don't think he understands what this landscape is. the majority of utah do not

favor and public lands in general but even my father was laid piper over 50 years, that is our family business per he was saying that the rapidity of the scale of which this is happening with the oil and gas development, the fracking, is wrong. you would be shocked. if you were a raven flying over the four corners of the colorado plateau looks like an exposed nervous system. >> tell below bit more about your relationship with your dad. you got this chapter of loving letters to your father which is so sweet. you also tell an anecdote earlier in the book it's in mockery of the family business you talked with the family business. towards your way of looking at

the world. how is that -- develop that relationship? >> guest: i love my father. we think is conversations around our dinner table to say the least. but i think we have both evolve evolved. to be my father it would be more wildly upset about trump and i am, then he is. he is absolutely apoplectic. i think he was the first person you talk to vote by mail. i also think that has to do, with suffering pretty lost his wife to ovarian cancer. my oldest son my brother to lymphoma and two years ago we lost my brother to suicide. you know i think in each instance he was forced to look at the healthcare system. he was forced to look at

mental health issues of which there's not a lot of help for them with deep depression and addiction. like so many families. and i think, i wish it wasn't the case, but i think in many instances change comes out of pain. my father's been through a lot of that. i think his love of his work, this will interest you. i remember growing up where my father was fighting the unions. he had to go fully on because he was afraid. whenever we would get in the car he would have us wait outside far away because he didn't know if he turned on the ignition at the car would blow it. that is how i was raised. not long ago when i asked dad how he was viewing this country said you know if i was a younger man now, i would be supporting the unions. i would be supporting the workingman because they are

absolutely being disregarded, disenfranchised, and used. that to me was the biggest arc that i father. he really was a champion of the workingmen's whole life and is one. but i think things have changed so much that he is part of that change. >> you mentioned your brother dan died by suicide. you have an acacia it's got to be one of the hardest essays to read, i've read it three times and cried every time i read it, it is so powerful and sad. it must've been hard to write, how did you do that? >> guest: you know how to write that for myself. there's a lot of reasons why we write. i think it made no sense to me. even though it meant, i have worried about my brother taking his life in puberty on. you know when he was 14 i

remember it laying my body in front of his door so that if he tried to commit suicide he would have to walk over my body to do so. he has suffered from depression for a long time. but there's something about that act. it's an outlet, questions can never be answered you're buried in. you know, a part of me died with him. and going back to his texts and that one line, he told us what he was going to do. no irem or calling him day. we were extremely close. you would have loved each other. and he said you know, it is

too hard. and yet still i didn't believe it people, his death by suicide a new hank said to dan he had seen him through his and we did that. i cannot think of a more powerful honoring for dan than that. >> host: and those kind of extraordinary two. do you have advice for people who have loved ones who are severely depressed, who are addicts, annoyed. >> guest: not to give up. i think in a way our family gave up.

you know it is so hard because there's lies, there's manipulation, we got tired. i can't count the times we took dan to rehab. but it is a mental illness. it is like cancer. i kept thinking how is dm's death different than steve's death. steve had the support of the entire family run when he died. he had lymphoma. dan had a lifelong illness with depression and he died alone. so my regret is when dan said knock if need me, i never did. there is not a day that goes by that he think what would have happened if i had knocked on that door and we had held each other. so on one hand, i know it was

a conscious choice for him. as a look on his face i never seen. we found, and really not even with your friends but you and i have shared a lot together, during the pandemic it was brought up the box of dan's possessions. it was literally one box and they were books. and he did not leave a letter. and when hank and i opened those books, each one was marked with the feather in a very obvious way. in fact i just happen to have, this is one of the feathers. as we read them out loud in the order that we found them, that was his note. and it began with the

biography of blackout. it was a copy of. [inaudible] it was. [inaudible] it was a conscious death. and that i find peace. we have marked those paragraphs to my father. i think my father found a peace as well your and half later. but i can tell you were reading them out loud, it will be finished we looked up and there is a turkey vulture circling us. and would you believe me if i told you the turkey vulture sat on the barbed wire fence. it will be looked at this vulture it opened its wings as though it were a black crucifix. and it stayed there. and when we open the last box of dan's belonging, it was a black crucifix.

think it goes to the things we can't know but i trust. subject that is magic. another incredible book ahead your mother gifted to you her journals. and they open the journal and they are antique. how is your take that message? rebecca mother was dying from ovarian cancer part as rubbing her back i never thought i would forget that knife out the window was going to explode from the wind. she said terry leaving all of my journals. we have to promise me one lot look at them until after i am gone. later she passed, a month later i thought now i will finally know what my mother was thinkin thinking. and they were exactly where she said they were. and as you said, three

shelves, each journal beautifully place would open the first one blank, second one blank, third, fourth, fifth, shift, shelf after shelf. all my mother's journals were empty. it was a second death. and they think it took me 20 years to be able to really go into that gesture to find out what was she saying? >> what was adjuster exactly? was she saying i have a lot to say and i don't have time to say it i couldn't set? or you got a few of my journals? >> the truth is they really don't know. i mean the obvious one was i could take them, fill them, right in them. i think it was deeper than that. and she was a contrarian in her own way.

more of a women are expected to do three things, get married, have children, make a journal. my mother got married, she had children, she did not keep a journal pretty think that was her resistance. her life was private. i also think she was living her own life. in breast cancer with four children. to keep a journal, matt? >> you know i don't. i should but i don't. >> is the one thing i have been faithful with is a journal. and you live twice. my mother that did not interest her purge she was so in the present, not in the past. she never thought she had one. i think it was complicated. but i love thinking about it. >> she was a fighter within the more of a church, just as you were before you left.

there's a book about mormons and think, that fight with progressive gains in the society. you brought that with that in the more of a church, you tried to get in the more of a church and she was with you in that correct? speech issues very quiet in her resistance. but in the home it was very much that way. as when we give each other blessings. that is taboo. even though that is in the history of more of a women i think she was radical as were my grandmother's. i think that's quite typical of more of a women they are very strong.

it's in the context of a home. he did not have that opportunit opportunity. civic a lot are uncomfortable writing about and nonfiction lies way about family. you view it a lot. how do you get to a point not worry about people offending or how other members of the family going to take how your writing? >> great question. it never gets easier. i think you do offend. when i learned to the years it's not you think is going to offend them that offends them. my uncle for example we were talking about him was a state senator. he is very conservative, guns are his passion. i remember driving with him and his 240d, a very small car, very fast car. and we were going to the

nevada test site to protest. every 20 miles we would stop at one of his chevy ranges. and i had written that he had 28 rifles. twenty-one long guns, and six pistols. and wound i gave it to him he said it's all wrong. thought to be offended that i revealed he had that many guns and very tiny car. he said i had 32 guns. and then listed every single one of them. that's one of an example in a lighthearted way. i remember when i read a book called refuge which is about the rise felt the death of my mothe mother. the first fact my father was taking brook and i to the airport, we were going to new

york. i was turning in the manuscript. i handed the main script to my father dan was with him. we got to new york, we got to her little hotel, and the red light was flashing. there was a message saying call home and immediately put at that someone else had died. so i called my father and before i even said daddy said he turned me into a god damn hothead and your brother was to talk to you. dan got on the phone is that i can't believe what a minor character i am. [laughter] but then there are other points. that are more poignant. my father did not meet talk about the death scene and refug refuge. because he cried. he said i went this out. i said dad, what kind of a man would you be if you hadn't cried? and what are you afraid of? i'm afraid the men i work with will see me as weak.

and i convinced him that this was not personal. this is what we go through. we don't share that enough. i said maybe it will give other families courage to stay with the trouble. to be present. into his credit credit he allowed me to it keep that. i am a writer who does check in with my family. and we negotiate. but the things that i don't what in the book is at our last christmas you say that diane brought out wine and we all drank that as a family. and he said that was private that was not personal that was not general, that is breaking the word of wisdom that mormons hold dear. and jaisol his point. as a writer was i sad? yes because my mother as her last gesture brought in this bordeaux wine with glasses for

each of us. instead let us drink to the blue the very marrow of life. this is not about religion this is about spiritual teachings. and she turned to her two granddaughters there were two and four and said, i hope you will hold the priesthood and have the same outward powers the men do. what i had love to have that in the book is a turning point in my mother's own spiritual development? yes. if you look at that passage now it says my mother brought out cranberry juice. it doesn't quite have the same meaning. but i had to trust that her transformation would be carried. but it is not easy. it's not easy having the chapter on dance of death and cremation in this book. it was painful to my father.

and he did not read it until actually recently. these are decisions we make. but i have always felt that my family is my own landscape. and my greatest teachers. >> to someone who listens to us and wonders about that beautiful quilt over your shoulder, where did that quilt come from? >> it actually came from the yucatán. you and i share a love of birds. i watch these women make it. i think about the handwork of women. a great inspiration of birds to all cultures and all people around the world. and how vulnerable women's crafts are. as well as species it weaves together a book of women >>

tell me the importance of birds or wilderness to write a lot about wilderness. why is that so special and important? >> guest: one of the things, matt, that i am trying to figure out and i would love your help. many of my friends, who are pablo people and navajo and healthy. how do we build the bridge between public plans, native lands and here? and in this moment with black lives matter, many of my students are at the harvard divinity school. for example we have this class right now is called the climate of unknowing.

i was talk about decentering ourselves from the earth. in other words, why is it always about the human concern? but some of my students were saying, how can we be asked to decentering ourselves when we have never been at the center. at marginalized communities. and black people and brown people. and so it is interesting, is having a conversation recently and this book, do you know this book? it is so fantastic. this anthology. there is over 100 indigenous poets representative of 150 indigenous nations. and it is so powerful. i was asking joy about this about wildlands, public plans, sacred lands.

and this moment we are in a racial injustices being brought into a sharp focus. and both the reckoning and the awakening that's happening in this country. and as a white person really coming to grips with my own white supremacy and women culture. which even as a child i knew it was wrong. but you know, she said for us it's very simple. we are earth. and how do we build that bridge, matt? how do you see this as one who is thought deeply about birds, about wildlands, about democrac democracy? and the human community. what is the bridge? >> i think we are all looking for bridges. paul in. [inaudible]

incredible poet. to figure it how we are going to get from here to there. how we are going to make first of all offer doors of people to enter into this movement in the country and get a real democracy. billy don't have a functioning democracy right now. we have is bernie used to say we still have in aligarh key for the rich people and the corporations are running the show. they are taking everything they can as fast as they can print they've used race since the beginning of this country before to get what they needed to get. we need to have an expansive view of what our democracy is permitted to fight racism to fight capitalism, it's right in front of our very eyes. you're right about that when you talk about climate change. in the fossil fuel industry.

but i do think we also need to honor this fight against white supremacy that we are witnessing right now in front of her eyes. one of the greatest mass movement certainly in recent american history and how tremendous it is. try us focusing on violence in a few places. as a huge majority of places that see no violence whatsoever. here in wisconsin you get for dozen or more cities and towns and villages many have never seen a purchase before their lives. it is really struck a chord. george floyd struck a cord of people who just assume not believe this kind of cruelty, racism and sadism existed. >> is just going to say i could not believe the outcome of the child with breonna taylor. that those two officers were

completely exonerated. >> it is just amazing. i think people who are in the criminal justice system either as a victims of it or operators, judges, police, lawyers, they know the system is corrupt and systemically racist. i do friend who's a public defender died of cancer years ago for it i interviewed him surely before he died. is it what if you learn? everyone lies is what he said. and that's what stuck in my mind. and we have seen it we see it all the time. but yeah building bridges, opening these doors for people it's really important. you've got erosion as your title you say we are eroding and evolving out once simultaneousl simultaneously. what concerns me is we are making these eroding's faster than we are evolving. how do you see those competing

forces? >> guest: i'm still thinking about the bridges. let me make a segue here. i think if we look at what we are talking about with racism and climate and the unraveling of democracy i think it's all part of the same story which is what you're getting at. i like to think about the open space of democracy, how to keep the open space of democracy open? i think with climate change you talk about wildlands and public lands, native lands i think about the word health. the health of the planet the health of communities, that if we keep seeing that this is a tapestry. it is all interrelated.

and interconnected. and they think in a way we have a chance to see climate as one of those bridges. because even though it will affect marginalized people first, in the end it's going to affect all of us. we've seen that with the fires in the american left. 5million acres have burned. there's so much smoke in our valley for our fire alarm went off in the house you know i keep thinking this metaphor that we are, we can't breathe. that was the rallying cry with george floyd. we can't breathe because of racial injustice and police brutality. we cannot breathe because of the smoke of the western fires. we cannot breathe because the viruses taking over our lungs. the open spaces democracy expands that in that it is a

common ground for all if we can begin to see that and begin to see home ground and what that really means to help them openings of our communities. erosion and evolving, eroding and evolving out once. we have an erosional landscaper to hope you will come visit, you and jean at some point. right in front of us tower it's a 400-foot free standing when stan known pinnacle. by the way has a pulse. the monitors have been set at the base and the top. with the geologists found is that it literally has a pulse. almost like the polls of a baby on that fetal monitor. you know the tower has a polls we have a polls.

erosion happens over billions of years here in the colorado plateau. it can also happen overnight. we just had a huge shearing a week ago saturday were a huge rock face off into the river. i think that our democracy has been a slow erosion. i also think that in the last four years it has been a shearing of erosion. the other side is, i do think we are evolving, matt and i don't think we can go back. i don't think we can go back and say climate change is debatable or that it is a hoax for it we know that it isn't. that right there should be disqualifying i think for a supreme court judge. i don't think we can go back on same-sex marriage on marriage equality. i don't think we can go back on women's health sovereignty with the roe versus wade.

we are evolving. i think we are evolving in the conscious way. i think that what we are seeing in terms of black sovereignty. but we are seeing in terms of indian sovereignty, what we are seeing in all of these arenas are actually a positive thing. and i was just reading the parable and her character talked about how change comes through plagues. we may be in this pandemic. we don't know who we evolve into but we are in the process of evolving now. >> just to be devil's advocate , what about the right wing the far white supremacist? malicious they scare me scare

me because it's giving them a green light to galvanize them. they will be here in trump is gone. just another demigod tried to harness its energy and those forces. >> i think there very well may be a revolution. according to my uncle who as i told you is a state senator, he told me he is afraid. we live in a small valley can tilts well armed. i have not spoken of this i know it's in those mountains. >> what's in them? >> guest: ammunition guns. it is a very real thing.

i have had my own -- like there is a talk i gave in utah. i had to have a police protection because some of the groups in this area aligned with the bundy's. it was right before the standoff. this is very real. their roots in fundamentalism. this is a very real thing in the interior west as it is obviously in michigan and what you're saying in wisconsin. i do think this is real. but i do think it's not going to last. you know, there may be violence there already is violence. i think we have to have a plan actually. in our family, which is eight

western family i will say is arms, we have had not only family meetings about how we are going to vote, but our family has had meetings on what will happen if this kind of incursion or revolution as my family is called it, what our plan is. so i am taking this very seriously. and we do have a plan. and it could be terrifying. we just had, matt, yesterday a military plane flight over our house. we thought it was crashing. and then we thought it was landing. both brook and iran outside literally we could read the print. and within minutes people in our neighborhood, and our valley called it was a military cargo plane. it was running military

practices of what will happen in the event something goes wrong. that happened right here in castle valley in the desert. that is terrifying to me. we have with your 25 years i've never seen that before. this is not the only example we are hearing in this area. >> why are you confident you will prevail over these forces. >> to me it's not it's about knowing where hope dwells. and i think america is a pragmatic, denis. i think we're going to see a voting turnout we've never had before. i have to believe that, you may disagree with that love to know you think. i refuse to believe the be taken over by militia i just

don't believe that. there may be a revolution. but i don't think they will win. >> do you? >> i don't think so. i don't have a weapon, we live out 10 miles south of madison at a little cul-de-sac. a lot of time the neighbors aren't there. some neighbors have biden signs up and one neighbor has huge trump flags flying. the word thing as their birdwatchers to protect only met them what's because a willing command of their house at much privity to talk to them and say look, we love birds both you and me, and you know it trumps the migratory bird treaty? what is me doing an alaska what is doing on public lands that are going to destroy habitat for these birds we love? that's only i could open that conversation.

unless they're flying eight not the flag or a confederate flag. but there flying trump flags or trump size i'm not gonna write them off less and more evidence to write them off. 42% of people in wisconsin for trump. i can't write off 42% of my neighbors and fellow citizens here. i worry though, i worry i study the holocaust in college. i studied it after trump came along. and he has got all the signs of fascist, i don't use that afterward very often. i've used it with trump because i think that is who he is. >> guest: maybe it comes down to neighbor to neighbor. brook and i, before the pandemic we are having with calling difficult dinner party. were we would invite eight people who did not think the

same. and you know when you establish that kind of relationship by breaking bread together, it's very hard to not appreciate each other for who you are. we have to not just have dinner parties will have have those difficult conversations. we have it in her own family. her family's very diverse in terms of its political spectrum. i love my uncle i love my cousins. we really don't agree on much politically. but we love the land and we love each other. we have found ways in which we can talk about these things. i think we both have influenced one another. i think i can see in many ways but they are talking about. what they are afraid of, how they have not felt seen or hear heard. and that has influenced my own writing.

>> host: you right in the book about people being surprised that trump when the first time because they did not appreciate the rancor and the feeling of of losing power and not being in their lives which cap in kramer here at the university of wisconsin wrote a great book called the politics of resentment. she interviewed a lot of people before trump got a real good pulse in reading where these folks were coming from and the resentments that they had. jaisol that echo in your book. that is still out there. i hear it a lot from white guys. yeah, i just think it is important to listen to people where they are at. and gradually try to bring them around spring that's all i am doing these days is nudging people, nudge, nudge, nudge. >> i feel there's a shared grief in this country. we are not acknowledging. almost 220,000 citizens are

dead. we have not properly acknowledge that, grieve them or had a ceremony that honors them and their families. and i think if we don't have these conversations about grief and have a national grieving, that grief comes out sideways. and in many ways that can be violent. again i think about what great eyes said, we have to think about what is going to heal this nation. what is going to he'll us neighbor to neighbor even in her own family. i think part of that is getting to the source of the pain. and that's going to take a lot of reflection. : :

people lose a loved one to it. chris christie in the icu for four days and didn't wear a mask. that is nuts. i don't know how we deal with this at this point. do you? >> i don't. my brother had covid and stayed with us for six weeks. hank. it is not pretty. we almost lost him. >> is he doing all right? >> he is all right now. they run pipelines. it comes from the soil. we almost lost him. i cannot imagine what people are going through and dying alone

and, again, the unresolved grief of not being able to be with their loved ones let alone where you are in that isolation. i think we have a lot of work to do. you know, i live in a state where one of the neighboring counties they had, as i told you, and anti-rask rally. [inaudible] i do not know what we can do. all i know is, you know, we can have the hard conversations with our family, we just had one last year where we decided we were not meeting for thanksgiving. we may not gather for christmas. we are trying to find other alternatives. letter writing to each other and set of gifts. getting my father and his partner, you know, set up on zoom so he can read to his great-grandchildren. this time it calls for the

difficult conversations and also creative alternatives so that we can stay in touch in ways that are other than physical, especially in the coming late fall and winter. i think it's going to get really rough. >> it is getting rough right now in wisconsin for sure. it is supposed to snow tomorrow. people will be indoors more. it will spread. it is insidious. we have six or seven minutes left. one of the listeners asked what brings you joy when so many reasons to focus on fear and anxiety. how do you find joy and beauty in this tricky world, in this difficult world. >> i think about it a lot. i think finding beauty in a broken world is creating beauty in the world we find.

you and i shared joy and ecstatic moments with birds. the rabbit brush is blooming yellow. again, red rock cliffs and azure sky. all things primary it reminds me what indoors. i love the creative process, as you know, matt. i have been a binge writer my whole life because i have been in motion. i have been home seven months and i feel an embodied sense i have not known before. deeply humbled by watching the power of regeneration in the desert itself. finding different ways to connect with my students. you know, joy to me -- from the

chapter on the resignations of stone. nothing speaks to joy. i take great joy and the fact that we get to vote. i take great joy that i got to reregister now i am back in utah. my greatest joy is in conversation with you, matt. i love you. i have so much respect for who you are and the integrity that you hold. the true radical soul that you are that is rooted in this place

the health of our communities is compromised. not all of it is good. methane flares, chemicals from gas cpm into aquifers. we are learning from the depth of indigenous knowledge. how to respond and respect and behave in the lands that we call home. beyond our own species is possible. flash yielding to fervor. bodies conforming to rock. the residents of stone speaks to our existence. we are eroding and evolving. we are not alone in what we feel. the vibrational power alive is also alive in us. it is heard in the wombs of our mothers. imagine how this magnetic force

field is booming. the power wielded over the earth and galvanized and evolved power in relationships with the earth. it creates new forms of extension. also, not without joy. bowing to beauty. old structures fall and new routes are found. boom, red dust popping through an inversion of clouds. the earth has a pulse. we have a pulse. we are alive to a resounding world. >> that is wonderful and so inspiring. thank you so much, terry. >> i love you and i cannot wait for your book.

i will be back. thank you, connor, for this conversation. birds, democracy, terror and peace. [laughter] that is perfect. i could not say that better. we are so so delighted that you are able to be here with us. i've been telling people for weeks. absolutely worth whatever you have to give up to do it. it is just absolutely lovely to have you here. thank you for your questions and penetrating conversation. next september we will look for your book. terry, we will have you back. this concludes the fall celebration of the book festival it is bittersweet. it is sad that we are not altogether. it is very delightful that 200 people came together tonight to

watch this conversation. thank you to everyone watching at home. all of our events are recorded and available for replay. if you need to dive back into what terry had to say we can do so at the finish here. it is a remarkable thing. thank you for giving us a perfect ending. ♪ >> you are watching book tv on c-span2. every week and with the latest nonfiction books and authors. book tv on c-span2. created by america's cable television company. today we are brought to you by these television companies as a public service. ♪ >> here are some of the current best-selling nonfiction books according to the boston globe. topping the list in the first volume of his presidential memoir a promised land president

barack obama reflects on his life and political career. then pulitzer prize winning author isabel describes what she calls a hidden caste system in the united states. after that is it is a bagman. richard nixon's vice president. that is followed by david allen sibley what it is like to be a bird. wrapping up our look at some of the best-selling books according to the boston globe. a collection of stories and essays by author. a reminder that all book tv programs are available to watch online apple tv.org. >> welcome to the manhattan institute. i am michael hendricks director state local policy. i am here to welcome you and our host for this conversation my co