Chip Ward

After living for four years in wilderness, Chip Ward moved to the edge of Utah’s West Desert, an environmental sacrifice zone, where he organized and led several campaigns to make polluters accountable. He co-founded of HEAL Utah and served on the board of the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance for several years. Starting as a bookmobile librarian, Ward ended his library career as the Assistant Director of the Salt Lake City Public Library. His books Canaries on the Rim: Living Downwind in the West and Hope’s Horizon: Three Visions for Healing the American Land describe his political adventures. He is a regular contributor to Tomdispatch.com and his essays on conservation have appeared widely across the web. An essay about homelessness, “How the Public Library Became the Heartbreak Hotel,” is the inspiration for the movie The Public now in production. As a spokesperson for environmental causes, he has been interviewed by CBS, CNN, NPR, the BBC, and more. This is his first novel. He lives in Torrey, Utah.