Known for her ardent naturalist prose, Terry Tempest Williams is the author of Refuge, which simultaneously chronicled her mother's death from cancer—developed from nuclear testing in Nevada—and the flooding of the Bear River Migratory Bird Sanctuary. She is the author of more than a dozen books, including The Open Space of Democracy, An Unspoken Hunger, and Finding Beauty in a Broken World. A leading advocate for ethics and the American West, Williams is the recipient of the Robert Marshall Award from The Wilderness Society, their highest honor given to an American citizen. When Women Were Birds is a poignant memoir of her mother's mysteriously empty journals, illuminating what it means to have a voice.