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A Conversation with Phyllis Barber


Shaped by the windblown sands and vast horizon of the Great Basin, Phyllis Barber probes and celebrates her high-desert roots throughout a new collection of personal essays on place and perspective, ambition and loss. Torrey House Press will publish The Precarious Walk: Essays from Sand & Sky in May 2022.


Phyllis Barber is an award-winning author of nine books, including The Desert Between Us, Raw Edges, and How I Got Cultured. Winner of the AWP Prize for Creative Nonfiction, she has published essays and short stories in North American Review, Crazyhorse, and Kenyon Review. She has been cited as Notable in The Best American Essays and The Best American Travel Writing. In 2005, Barber was inducted into the Nevada Writers' Hall of Fame. Barber has taught at the Vermont College of Fine Arts and the University of Utah's Osher Institute. She lives in Park City, Utah.