Gretel Ehrlich Essays

Descriptive Summary Biographical Sketch Scope and Contents Organization Restrictions Index Terms Related Material Administrative Information Description of Series Correspondence Poetry The Solace of Open Spaces Heart Mountain Wyoming Stories / Drinking Dry Clouds Islands, the Universe, Home A Match to the Heart Yellowstone Questions of Heaven Horse Whisperer, A Blizzard Year Cowboy Island (Santa Rosa Island( John Muir, Nature’s Visionary, Introduction to John Muir’s My First Summer in the Sierra This Cold Heaven The Future of Ice Home Ground Literary Production – Scripts and related material Literary Production – Drafts sent to Lilla Kalman Literary Production – Miscellaneous Resumés Business/Financial Materials Teaching Notes Lecture Notes Desk Journals and Notebooks Periodicals Photographs Negatives Slides Gretel Ehrlich, a writer of nonfiction, fiction, and poetry, born in Santa Barbara, California, January 21, 1946, writes about such diverse places as Wyoming, China, and Greenland.Her unique point of view on humans and the environment has earned Ehrlich a place among the best nature writers of our time.The collection contains correspondence between Ehrlich and some of these important authors, including Barry Lopez, Ted Hoagland, William Kittredge, and Terry Tempest Williams.

The National Endowment for the Humanities has twice recognized the importance of Ehrlich’s work in both a creative writing fellowship award and a humanities grant.

Besides her books and film work, Ehrlich has also published poems, screen plays, and numerous magazine articles.

1st draft, 11-28-91; outline 12 p., revised 11-30-91; outline, p. 11; newspaper & journal clippings on Peter Greenaway, 1991 and undated Questions of Heaven, Research, “Nation Palace Museum Art Gallery Guide and other material, clippings on silk art, cover for Mandarin Chinese language tapes (brochure removed for flat storage), 1992-1995 and undated This Cold Heaven, “Any Clear Thing that Blinds Us with Surprise,” complete, March 1996 draft, before Harper’s edits; The Second Thule Expedition; 1998; Aliberti’s Ride; misc. Merwin, Barry Lopez, Hillary Hauser, Annick Smith, William Kittredge, Dan Gerber, Rick Bass (?

drafts, 1996-1998 and undated Polaroids, [horse, people, writers’ gathering at Jackson, Wyo.], Jake Kettle (?

The collection is in good condition and is part of the James Sowell Family Collection in Literature, Community and the Natural World.

Some items with previous water damage were photocopied.Along the way we are privy to an introspective autobiography splendidly rendered.With her first book, “The Solace of Open Spaces” (1985), Gretel Ehrlich proved herself to be a prose poet of impressive talent and breadth.But to a set of waves journeying across the Pacific, the sea is the central body into which the lithosphere rudely bumps.The life of a wave ends at the edge of the continent where water becomes shallow.Return to the Table of Contents The collection is organized by book titles and by types of materials such as correspondence, book reviews, project files, research materials, resumés, business and financial materials, journals, and audio visual material. Researchers wishing to view the original films are urged to make an appointment prior to coming to the archive. Copy requests in excess of 5 pages must be approved by the donor or her representative.Word documents on computer disks were printed by the SWC/SC Library staff and disks were retained. Copyright is retained by the authors of items in this collection, or their descendants, as stipulated by U. Return to the Table of Contents Gretel Ehrlich Papers, 1923-2005 and undated, Southwest Collection/Special Collections Library, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Texas Collection accession #(s): 2005-0056-X Purchase, 2005 Michelle Roberts, Bonnie Hanson, Jamie Wormsbaker, Dr. Return to the Table of Contents Heart Mountain, “Heinman: Ht. British edition,” correspondence, cover art, catalogs, contract (Heinemann); correspondence from Phenomenon Productions and Mandarin (publisher) (some items removed for flat storage), 1988-1989 and undated Heart Mountain, Film proposal, “Bob’s outline”; outline, 5 p., undated; outline, 12 p.For a moment the wave is a mirror image of underwater contours.”“A Match to the Heart” similarly echoes the very essence of the elements it records: water, the fire of lighting, the sturdy utility of Wyoming earth, the blissful dynamic of air.It also poses answers to that most personal of questions: Who am I?At five o’clock one threatening afternoon barely two years ago, Gretel Ehrlich was struck by lighting.Of this event that profoundly and permanently altered her life she writes: “Before electricity carved its blue path toward me, before the negative charge shot down from cloud to ground, before ‘streamers’ jumped the positive charge back up from the ground to cloud, before air expanded and contracted producing loud pressure pulses I could not hear because I was already dead, I had been walking.”“A Match to the Heart” is the affecting, gorgeously written chronicle of Ehrlich’s subsequent struggle toward, if not recovery, at least balance.