Author Rick Bass to Perform Public Reading at USU March 28

Author Rick Bass, the former petroleum geologist turned writer, will perform a reading at 11.a.m. at Utah State University’s Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art Thursday, March 28. The event is free and open to the public.

Bass is an adopted son of the Mountain West. A Houston native, he studied wildlife biology and geology at Utah State University. After graduating Bass spent seven years working in the oil reserves of the Southeast before moving back West to live and write. He has published more than 30 books, including For a Little While (2016), Why I came West (2008), the novel All the Land to Hold Us (2013) and most recently, The Traveling Feast: On the Road and at the Table with My Heroes (2018). 

Bass, an environmentalist who lives in Montana, is the author of several award-winning pieces. His works have won the Pushcast Prize, the Nelson Algren Award and the O. Henry Award and have appeared in the anthologies The Best American Travel Writing and Best American Science Writing. In his latest book, Bass travels across the country—and the pond—to find his footing after a divorce and to cook for his mentors and literary giants, including Gary Snyder, Peter Matthiessen, David Sedaris, Terry Tempest Williams and Doug Peacock. A home-cooked meal becomes the vehicle through which Bass says 'thank you' to the writers who have spurred him to become the author he is today. 

The event is supported by USU’s Department of English, USU’s Mountain West Center for Regional Studies, Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art and Utah State magazine.

The Mountain West Center for Regional Studies at Utah State University promotes the study of the West, with a focus on the Interior West, and seeks to further an understanding of the environment, land, history and cultural groups found in this region. The Mountain West Center for Regional Studies is an outreach center in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences at USU. 

The Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art is dedicated to collecting, preserving and exhibiting modern and contemporary visual art with an emphasis on art in the American West. The collection consists of more than 5,000 artworks. The museum organizes temporary exhibitions and public events, all free of charge, to provide educational opportunities for USU students as well as K-12 and community groups. 

Since 1995, Utah State magazine has spotlighted the people, research and programming unique to Utah’s land-grant university in order to show the relevance of the research, teaching and service at Utah State University.