Gretel Ehrlich is an American travel writer, poet and

essay An essay is, generally, a piece of writing that gives the author's own argument, but the definition is vague, overlapping with those of a letter, a paper, an article, a pamphlet, and a short story. Essays have been sub-classified as formal a ...

ist.

Biography

Born in 1946 in

Santa Barbara, California Santa Barbara ( es, Santa Bárbara, meaning "Saint Barbara") is a coastal city in Santa Barbara County, California, of which it is also the county seat. Situated on a south-facing section of coastline, the longest such section on the West Co ...

, she studied at

Bennington College Bennington College is a private liberal arts college in Bennington, Vermont. Founded in 1932 as a women's college, it became co-educational in 1969. It claims to be the first college to include visual and performing arts as an equal partner in ...

and

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California ...

film school. She began to write full-time in 1978 while living on a Wyoming ranch after the death of a loved one. Ehrlich debuted in 1985 with ''The Solace of Open Spaces'', a collection of essays on rural life in Wyoming. Her first novel was also set in Wyoming, entitled ''Heart Mountain'' (1988), about a community being invaded by an

internment camp Internment is the imprisonment of people, commonly in large groups, without charges or intent to file charges. The term is especially used for the confinement "of enemy citizens in wartime or of terrorism suspects". Thus, while it can simpl ...

for

Japanese Americans are Americans of Japanese ancestry. Japanese Americans were among the three largest Asian American ethnic communities during the 20th century; but, according to the 2000 census, they have declined in number to constitute the sixth largest Asi ...

. One of Ehrlich's best-received books is a volume of creative nonfiction essays called ''Islands, The Universe, Home.'' Her characteristic style of merging intense, vivid, factual observations of nature with a wryly mystical personal voice is evident in this work. Other books include ''This Cold Heaven: Seven Seasons in Greenland'' and two volumes of poetry. In 1991 Ehrlich was hit by lightning and was incapacitated for several years. She wrote a book about the experience, ''A Match to the Heart'', which was published in 1994. Since 1993, she has traveled extensively, especially through

Greenland Greenland ( kl, Kalaallit Nunaat, ; da, Grønland, ) is an island country in North America that is part of the Kingdom of Denmark. It is located between the Arctic and Atlantic oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Greenland i ...

and western China. Her work is frequently anthologised, including '' The Nature Reader''. She has also received many grants. In 1991, she collaborated with British choreographer Siobhan Davies, writing and recording a poem cycle for a

ballet Ballet () is a type of performance dance that originated during the Italian Renaissance in the fifteenth century and later developed into a concert dance form in France and Russia. It has since become a widespread and highly technical form of ...

that opened in the Southbank Centre in

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

.Braided River: Gretel Ehrlich - Essayist
Retrieved on 18 November 2015.

Selected bibliography

*''To Touch the Water'', Ahsahta Press, 1981, *''The Solace of Open Spaces'', Viking Press, 1985, *''Heart Mountain'', Viking Press, 1988, *''Drinking Dry Clouds: Stories from Wyoming'', Capra Press, 1991, *''Islands, the Universe, Home'', Viking Press, 1991, *''Arctic Heart: A Poem Cycle'', Capra Press, 1992, *''A Match to the Heart: One Woman's Story of Being Struck by Lightning'', Pantheon Books, 1994, *''John Muir: Nature's Visionary'', National Geographic Society, 2000, *''This Cold Heaven: Seven Seasons in Greenland'', Pantheon Books, 2001, *''The Future of Ice: A Journey Into Cold'', Pantheon Books, 2004, *''In the Empire of Ice: Encounters in a Changing Landscape'', National Geographic Society, 2010, *''Facing the Wave: A Journey in the Wake of the Tsunami'', Pantheon, 2013, *”Unsolaced: Among the Way to All That Is”, Pantheon, 2021

References

External links

Author papers (1923–2005) at Southwest Collection/Special Collections Library, Texas Tech University

Author papers (1960-2018) at Southwest Collection/Special Collections Library, Texas Tech University

Whiting Foundation Profile
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ehrlich, Gretel American essayists American memoirists American nature writers Living people Writers from Santa Barbara, California Poets from Wyoming 1946 births Poets from California American women poets American women memoirists American women essayists Women science writers 21st-century American women