Rick Bass, Author and Activist, will be the next guest speaker of The Community Speaker Series, a joint effort by The Shasta College Foundation & The McConnell Foundation. On Tuesday, April 21, 2015 at 12:30 PM, Bass will guide a workshop on the Student Center Stage and then at 7:30 PM he will present a lecture at the Shasta College Theatre followed by a book signing. Both events are free and open to the public. Rick Bass will stay through to April 22, 2015 and speak on campus in the quad during the Earth Day Celebration.
Rick Bass is the author of over 30 books, including, most recently, a novel, ALL THE LAND TO HOLD US (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2013). His short stories and essays have appeared in Best American Short Stories, Best Spiritual Writing, Best American Science Writing, Best American Travel Writing, and numerous other anthologies. His books have been nominated for or received The Story Prize, the PEN/Nelson Algren Award for fiction, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the John Burroughs Award, and the Los Angeles Times Book Award. He has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Guggenheim Foundation, and the Lyndhurst Foundation, the Texas Institute of Letters, and the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters. He has taught creative writing at the University of Montana, the University of Texas, the University of North Carolina-Wilmington, Iowa State University, Montana State University, DePauw University, Beloit College, and the Stonecoast MFA program in southern Maine. He lives in northwest Montana’s Yaak Valley, where he is a member of the Yaak Valley Forest Council. (www.yaakvalley.org) In January 2016, Little, Brown will publish a story collection, FOR A LITTLE WHILE: NEW & SELECTED STORIES.
About his writing:
“Rick Bass is a national treasure.”—Carl Hiassen
“Probably no American writer since Hemingway has written about man-in-nature more beautifully or powerfully than Rick Bass.”—Dallas Morning News, reviewing short fiction collection, The Hermit’s Story.
“Bass’s language glistens with the beauty of the landscape he evokes…His narration is pitch-perfect, and his writing so full of empathy for people and places that each story is a new revelation.”—San Francisco Chronicle
“Once again…Rick Bass draws us into his magical human worlds, rendered urgently by a hypnotic prose that tracks a parallel and untamed natural world, often with a trace of loss and always patrolled by unmistakable decency. He is a master of this form…”—Doug Peacock
Rick Bass’s writers workshop and address at Shasta College is the second in a series of lecture events sponsored by The Community Speaker Series, a joint effort by The Shasta College Foundation and The McConnell Foundation, designed to inspire, excite and challenge the communities they serve with fresh ideas and perspectives on education, our community and our environment. The Community Speaker Series revitalizes a rich tradition of bringing highly regarded and historical figures to the local area to help deepen discussions and inspire positive activism on a local level for issues with global relevance. The Community Speaker Series will host at least three speakers in the coming year on the Shasta College main campus. The events will be free and open to the community. Both foundations have devoted much to education and community welfare in the North State and are excited to work together for the communities they serve.
For more information on Rick Bass, please visit his website: http://www.rickbass.net/
– Press Release
