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You're listening to Insights at the Edge.

Today I speak with Terry Tempest Williams.

Terry is a writer, a naturalist, and an environmental activist, and the author of several books, including Finding Beauty in a Broken World, as well as an original audio adaptation of this book, published by Sounds True.

I spoke with Terry about her creative process as a writer

and how she has been able to meet directly some of the most traumatic wounding the world can

offer and ultimately find a beauty in a broken world. Here's my conversation with Terry Tempest Williams.

So you're here at Sounds True Terry, recording an original audio abridgment of finding

beauty in a broken world.

And I'm curious just to begin, when you approached the book, how did you consider how to abridge it?

Your recording here is, what, one third of the book, something like that?

Right. I love editing. And I also love reworking material. So it's been a great gift and privilege to be able to take these three sections in finding beauty in a broken world,

the mosaic section, the Prairie Dog section, and the Rwanda section,

and condense each section into an hour.

So in many ways, it's forced me to be much clearer,

to be sharper on the connections that are held, and to see how each section speaks

to the next. It's also fascinating to realize that what works on the page with the reading

mind is very different from what is articulated verbally and what gets translated and what gets

lost. And the ear tells you that. And with Randy Rourke, such a great producer, we're constantly

in eye contact and we can read each other and it's like slash burn this, you know, and then something

else that I didn't think was as strong on the page

might be stronger through the voice. So it's been a wonderful re-exploration of the written word

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