Short Biography

Author and environmentalist, Rick Bass has published and edited over 25 books, including works of nonfiction, nature writing, essay collections, short story collections, novellas, and novels.  Bass was born in Fort Worth, Texas, the son of a geologist.  He received a B.S. in geology at Utah State University in 1979.   Bass started writing short stories on his lunch breaks while working as a petroleum geologist in Jackson, Mississippi.  In 1987, he moved with his wife, the artist Elizabeth Hughes, to the remote Yaak Valley near Troy, Montana where he has since worked to protect Glacier National Park and other wilderness areas from development and logging interests.   

The recipient of grants from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts, Rick Bass has received an O. Henry Award and a Pushcart Prize, and his fiction has been anthologized in Best American Short Stories as well as numerous journals and magazines.  His nonfiction has been included in Best American Travel Writing and Best Spiritual Writing.  He has served as a member of the Yaak Valley Forest Council and the Round River Conservation Studies Board.  His papers are held at the Southwest Collection/Special Collections Library at Texas Tech University and at Texas State University—San Marcos.

Books (Selected List)

Nashville Chrome.  New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2010. 

Why I Came West.  New York: Mariner Books, 2009. 

The Wild Marsh: Four Seasons at Home in Montana.  New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2009. 

The Blue Horse: A Novella.  Albuquerque, NM: Narrative Library, 2009. 

The Lives of Rocks: Stories.  New York: Mariner Books, 2007. 

Platte River.  Lincoln, NE:Bison Books, 2007. 

The New Wolves: The Return of the Mexican Wolf to the American Southwest. Stonington,

 CT:Lyons Press, 2007. 

The Roadless Yaak: Reflections and Observations about One of Our Last Great Places. 

            Stonington, CT: Lyons Press, 2007) 

The Diezmo: A Novel.  New York: Mariner Books, 2006. 

Caribou Rising:  Defending the Porcupine Herd, Gwich-‘in Culture, and the Arctic National

            Wildlife Refuge. (San Francisco, CA: Sierra Club Books, 2004. 

Nine-Mile Wolves.  New York: Mariner Books, 2003. 

The Hermit’s Story: Stories.  New York: Mariner Books, 2003. 

Colter: The True Story of the Best Dog I Ever Had.  New York: Mariner Books, 2001. 

Brown Dog of the Yaak: Essays on Art and Activism.  Minneapolis, MN: Milkweed

            Editions, 1999. 

Where the Sea Used to Be.  New York: Mariner Books, 1999. 

The Sky, the Stars, The Wilderness.  New York: Mariner Books, 1998. 

Fiber.  Athens, GA: Univ. of Georgia Press, 1998. 

In the Loyal Mountains.  New York: Mariner Books, 1997. 

The Lost Grizzlies: A Search for Survivors in the Wilderness of Colorado.  New York:

Mariner Books, 1997. 

The Book of Yaak.  New York: Mariner Books, 1997. 

Wild to the Heart.  New York:  WW Norton, 1997. 

The Deer Pasture.  New York: WW Norton, 1996. 

Oil Notes.  Dallas, TX: Southern Methodist University Press, 1995. 

The Watch: Stories.  New York: Norton, 1994. 

Winter: Notes from Montana.  New York: Mariner Books, 1992.