FICTION · BIOGRAPHY
Rick Bass
Rick Bass (born March 7, 1958) is an American writer and an environmental activist. He has a Bachelor of Science in geology with a focus in Wildlife from Utah State University. Right after he graduated, he interned for one year as a Wildlife Biologist at the Weyerhaeuser Timber Company in Arkansas. He then went onto working as an oil and gas geologist and consultant before becoming a writer and teacher. He has worked across the United States at various universities: University of Texas at Austin, Beloit College, University of Montana, Pacific University, Montana State University, Iowa State University.
THESE are the names of the places I hunt: Buck Hill, the Water Gap, the Burned-Off Hill, Camp Creek, the East Side, the Back Side of Buck Hill, and Turkey Hollow.
— from The Deer Pasture, 1985
Most acclaimed
The New Wolves
1998
The New Wolves is Rick Bass's passionate and eloquent account of the current reintroduction of the Mexican wolf to the American Southwest. Lobos, or Mexican wolves, once roamed freely throughout Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas, until they were hunted to extinction when big cattle interests came to the Southwest, changing the land forever. Now, a Mexican wolf reintroduction--similar to the Yellowstone efforts for its cousin the gray wolf--is fully under way in the Blue Mountains of Arizona. Eleven wolves--all captive-bred, descendants from the last wild Mexican wolves captured over twenty years ago--were released among the mesas. Now they roam in separate packs; they hunt, play, mate, and, it is hoped, will give birth to the first wild-born pups in decades. But it will not be, and has not been, easy; nothing so tenuous and delicate as the existence of a wild wolf in today's world could ever be. With the literary talent and naturalist's sensibility he brought to his highly praised account of a family of wolves in Montana, The Ninemile Wolves, Rick Bass examines the circumstances of the Mexican wolves' arrival: the exhausted, the overgrazed soil of the land, the behavior and requirements of wolves, and the concerns of ranchers, biologists, and environmentalists. He chronicles these new wolves' first few months of freedom: their triumphant desire to survive as well as the unfortunate and sometimes deadly confrontations with the unexpected. The New Wolves brings to life a place--its people and its wildlife, its past and its future. Bass articulates the land's need for wolves to maintain balance, while masterfully depicting the modern conflict between nature and our need to control it. Part mediation, part probing journalism, The New Wolves is an important new chapter in the drama of wolves and the American West -- Book jacket.
The Diezmo
2005
A novel based on the Mier Expedition follows two young men on an expedition to the Mexican border, during which they are captured in a raid on the Mexican village of Mier and end up as pawns in an international chess game that will determine the fate of Texas.
The Deer Pasture
1985
A collection of seventeen narratives in which Rick Bass describes his family's deer pasture and its significance as a family tradition.