REBECCA LAWTON is a Western author, fluvial geologist, and former Colorado River guide. Her books about water and river subcultures include Reading Water: Lessons from the River (San Francisco Chronicle Bay Area Bestseller and ForeWord Nature Book of the Year Finalist). Her pieces for general audiences have been published in Aeon, Audubon, Brevity, Hakai, Orion, Shenandoah, Sierra, Undark, and many other journals. Her creative writing honors include a 2014/15 Fulbright Scholarship, the 2006 (inaugural) Ellen Meloy Fund Award for Desert Writers, the 2015 (inaugural) Waterston Desert Writing Prize, a 2014 WILLA award for original softcover fiction, Pushcart Prize nominations in fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, and residencies at Hedgebrook Retreat for Women Writers, The Island Institute, and PLAYA. She lives at the Cascade Mountain-Great Basin interface in Summer Lake, Oregon, where she directs PLAYA’s residency program for artists, writers, and scientists.

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In her new essay collection, The Oasis This Time: Living and Dying with Water in the West, Lawton shows the deep connections between human need for refuge and nature’s birthright of water, shade, and sustenance.