Gretel Ehrlich is an American travel writer, poet and essayist.

Biography

Born in 1946 in Santa Barbara, California,^[4] she 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 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]

Selected bibliography

• To Touch the Water, Ahsahta Press, 1981, ISBN 978-0-916272-16-6
• The Solace of Open Spaces, Viking Press, 1985, ISBN 978-0-670-80678-2; 2017 edition.
• Heart Mountain, Viking Press, 1988, ISBN 978-0-670-82160-0; 2017 edition.
• Drinking Dry Clouds: Stories from Wyoming, Capra Press, 1991, ISBN 978-0-88496-315-8; 2005 edition.
• Islands, the Universe, Home, Viking Press, 1991, ISBN 978-0-670-82161-7
• Arctic Heart: A Poem Cycle, Capra Press, 1992, ISBN 978-0-88496-357-8
• A Match to the Heart: One Woman's Story of Being Struck by Lightning, Pantheon Books, 1994, ISBN 978-0-679-42550-2; 1995 ebook edition.
• John Muir: Nature's Visionary, National Geographic Society, 2000, ISBN 978-0-7922-7954-9 book jacket, courtesy of sierraclub.org
• This Cold Heaven: Seven Seasons in Greenland, Pantheon Books, 2001, ISBN 978-0-679-44200-4
• The Future of Ice: A Journey Into Cold, Pantheon Books, 2004, ISBN 978-0-375-42251-5
• In the Empire of Ice: Encounters in a Changing Landscape, National Geographic Society, 2010, ISBN 978-1-4262-0574-3
• Facing the Wave: A Journey in the Wake of the Tsunami, Pantheon, 2013, ISBN 978-0-307-90731-8; 2014 pbk edition.
• ”Unsolaced: Among the Way to All That Is”, Pantheon, 2021^[16] ISBN 978-0-307-91179-7