Gretel Ehrlich
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Gretel Ehrlich | |
|---|---|
| Born | January 21, 1946 Santa Barbara, California, U.S. |
| Occupation | Writer |
| Period | 1978–present |
| Genre | Nonfiction |
| Notable works | This Cold Heaven[1][2] |
| Notable awards | Whiting Award Henry David Thoreau Prize[3] |
| Partner | Neal Conan (2014 to his death) |
| Website | |
| www | |
Gretel Ehrlich is an American travel writer, poet and essayist.
Born in 1946 in Santa Barbara, California,[4] Ehrlich studied at Bennington College and UCLA 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.[5] Her first novel was also set in Wyoming, entitled Heart Mountain (1988), about a community being invaded by an internment camp for Japanese Americans.
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.[6] Other books include This Cold Heaven: Seven Seasons in Greenland[7][8] 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.[9]
Since 1993, she has traveled extensively, especially through Greenland,[10] Japan[11] and western China.[12][10]
Her work is frequently anthologised, including in 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 that opened in the Southbank Centre in London.[13][14][15]
