Major Works
- For a Little While (2016)
Where the Sea Used to Be by Rick Bass
- All the Land to Hold Us: A Novel (2013)
- In My Home There Is No More Sorrow: Ten Days in Rwanda 2012
- The Black Rhinos of Namibia: Searching for Survivors in the African Desert (2012) non-fiction
- The Wild Marsh: Four Seasons at Home in Montana (2009) non-fiction
- Why I Came West: A Memoir (2008)
- The Lives of Rocks (short stories, 2006)
- The Diezmo: A Novel (2005)
- The Hermit’s Story: Stories (2002)
- Colter: The True Story of the Best Dog I Ever Had (2000)
- Where the Sea Used to Be (novel) 1998
- The New Wolves (1998) non-fiction
- The Watch : Stories (1989)
- The Sky, the Stars, the Wilderness (1997)
- The Book of Yaak (1996) Non-fiction
- In the Loyal Mountains (1995) non-fiction
- Oil Notes (1995) non-fiction
- The Lost Grizzlies (1995) non-fiction
- Platte River (1994) non-fiction
- The NineMile Wolves (1992) non-fiction
- Winter: Notes from Montana (1991) non-fiction
- Wild to the Heart (1990) non-fiction
Biography of Rick Bass
by Jonny Tahai (SHS)
Rick Bass was born in Fort Worth, Texas, on March 7, 1958. Bass’s father was a geologist. As a young boy, Rick became quickly intrigued by the natural world. He received his B.S. at Utah State University in 1979 and married Elizabeth Hughes. They moved to Mississippi where Rick became an oil and gas geologist in Jackson. Some of his essays in Wild to the Heart discuss Mississippi.
Bass received the PEN/Nelson Algren Award in 1988 for his first short story, “The Watch.” Because of his love for nature, he decided to move in 1987 to the Yaak Valley in Montana with his wife and two daughters. While living in Montana, Rick has made and still is making attempts to save the last few acres of roadless land in the Yaak.
Rick won the James Jones Fellowship Award for his novel called Where the Sea Used To Be. Rick has also made a trip to California to ask for help and wilderness support.
Rick’s work mainly concentrates on the natural world and how close it is to the heart. He continues to be an active environmentalist, a member of the Sierra Club, the Montana Wilderness Association, the Cabinet Resources Group, Round River Conservation Studies, and the Yaak Valley Forest Council. He has published articles in magazines such as Field and Stream, Sports Afield, Gray’s Sporting Journal, Outdoor Life, and others.
Rick Bass’s The Hermit’s Story was a Los Angeles Times Best Book of the Year in 2000. The Lives of Rocks was a finalist for the Story Prize and was chosen as a Best Book of the Year in 2006 by the Rocky Mountain News. Bass’s stories have also been awarded the Pushcart Prize and the O. Henry Award and have been collected in The Best American Short Stories. He continues to live with his family on a ranch in Montana and is actively engaged in saving the American wilderness. His papers are available for research at Texas State.
His book written in 2008 is a memoir called Why I Came West. Since then, he has written many more books: All The Land to Hold Us: A Novel (2013), In My Home There Is No More Sorrow: Ten Days in Rwanda (2012), The Black Rhinos of Namibia: Searching for Survivors in the African Desert (2012) non-fiction, and The Wild Marsh: Four Seasons at Home in Montana (2009) non-fiction, The Black Rhinos of Namibia: Searching for Survivors in the African Desert (2012) non-fiction, In My Home There Is No More Sorrow: Ten Days in Rwanda (2012), All the Land to Hold Us: A Novel (2013), and most recently For a Little While (2016).
He continues to write and lecture.
Reviews
A Review of the Short Story Antlers
by Jonny Tahai (SHS)
Jonny Tahai, SHS
In the short story “Antlers” by Rick Bass, a man talks about his life in small, secluded town. He describes a few of the townspeople and what they are like. The story starts when the main character talks about the town’s annual Halloween party. The people of the town gather, listen to music, dance, get drunk, put on antlers, and have a great time. When the night is over, the people that need a ride to their homes usually tie a rope to the back of someone’s truck and ski home.
There is a local bar in the town that almost every guy goes to. The bartender is a women named Suzie. Suzie has been with almost every man in all the town except Randy. She believes that Randy is really frightening. She hates hunting, especially bow hunting, because she believes it is pointless and cruel. That is why she doesn’t like Randy. Randy is the only person in the town that bow hunts, and Suzie absolutely can’t stand it. Suzie always criticizes all the men about hunting and how cruel it is. The men just give her a big hoo-rah and drink some beer.
The main character, who has spent the most time with Suzie, still has feelings for her. He knew that Suzie was going to leave him, but still it hurt him. Eventually, after she leaves her last boyfriend, she comes back to the main character. The story is a very vivid story of a man that lives in a small, quiet valley. Even though the town is small, a lot goes on in that town.
Related Websites
- Web site by Rick Bass presents his biography and much more.
- Reviews of Bass’s novel Where the Sea Used to Be are here.
- Ole Miss writers site gives information about Rick Bass.
- Behind the Book by Rick Bass (2011)
- Southwest Collection/Special Collections Library at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas, holds a large manuscript collection of Rick Bass papers. There are 78 boxes of material covering the years 1958-2002.
Bibliography
- Jane Fritz – Rick Bass: A writer of the Wild Places – (available) http://www.keokee.com/sptmag97~online/rickbass.html -10-28-98.
- Elisabeth Sherwin – Save the Yaak pleads nature writer Bass – (available) http://dcn.davis.ca.us/g/gizmo/rick.html – 10-28-98.
- KM – Rick Bass – (available) http://cedar.olemiss.edu/depts/english/ms-writers/dir/bass_rick/ 10-27-98.
- Rick Bass: Biography – wysiwyg://44://www.geocites.com/athens/forum/6420/biopage.html 11-4-98.
- James Jones Society Selects Two for first Novel Fellowship Award – http://www.wilkes.edu/wilkesdocs/univrel/JonesAward95.html – 11-28-98.
- Jordan Mackay – Bass, Master – http://www.epnet.com/egi-bin/epwlurch/pag…xrecs=10/reccount=1/ft=1/startrec=1/pic=1 – 11-29-98.