Bios
Long/First Person
For most of my life I’ve been passionate about the wild world. Earlier, this meant skiing and climbing in some of the great mountains of America, wandering the cliffs and canyons of the Colorado Plateau or naturalizing in some of the planet’s last great Edens. Lately, during long solo walks I’ve discovered my own vast and complex inner wilderness. I write in an effort to understand the importance of inner and outer wildness in modern life. Years ago, after encouragement from my mentor, the great teacher, William Kitteridge, I realized that the one story I would tell over and over again for the rest of my life would be this: “We live in bodies that are largely unchanged since the Pleistocene, trying to make them work in a world which is vastly different from the one for which evolution designed us. Perhaps acknowledging this is a big step toward solving some of our current problems.” My ‘one story’ appears in various forms in dozens of stories and articles, and five books including Halflives: Reconciling Work and Wildness, Open Midnight, and my latest, Mary Jane Wild: Two Walks and a Rant. My passion for wildness has informed the conservation work I’ve done, formally and informally for over four decades, most recently with the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance. I have an MBA in Sustainable Business from the Bainbridge Graduate Institute. Terry Tempest Williams and I live with our dog, Winslow, and three cats near Moab, Utah, where we raise rabbit brush and sage, and too much cheatgrass, watch light, and wait for rain.
Medium
Brooke Williams writes about evolution, consciousness, and his own adventures exploring both the inner and outer wilderness. His books include Open Midnight—Where Wilderness and Ancestors Meet (Trinity, 2107) and Mary Jane Wild—Two Walks and a Rant (Homebound, 2020). He believes that the length of the past equals the length of the future. He lives with three cats, a dog, and the writer, Terry Tempest Williams near Moab, Utah, where they watch the light and wait for rain.
Short
Brooke‘s life has been one of adventure and wilderness exploration. His conservation career spans forty years. His most recent book, Mary Jane Wild: Two Walks and a Rant, documents his exploration of how wildness helps us heal and understand and evolve. He’s now writing about dragonflies. He believes that the length of the past equals the length of the future.
Shorter
Brooke Williams writes about evolution, consciousness, and his own adventures exploring both the inner and outer wilderness. He lives with the writer, Terry Tempest Williams near Moab, Utah, where they watch light and wait for rain.