This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2004, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Utah's literary community is mourning the death of writer, artist and naturalist Ellen Meloy.
Meloy is best known for her 2002 book, The Anthropology of Turquoise: Meditations on Landscape, Art and Spirit, which was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize and won the Utah Book Award for nonfiction.
Friends, family and colleagues remember her for her generosity and humor as well as her uncanny ability to capture in print the relationship between people and nature. She spent most of her time outdoors, toting a notebook and making observations that would later become eloquent tidbits in her books (once comparing mating frogs, for example, to refueling bombers).
Meloy died suddenly on Nov. 4 at her home in Bluff, in Utah's southeast corner. She was 58.
"Ellen wrote with great insight on how landscape shapes perception, and she did it with wit and wisdom. Her writing has a lyrical quality we all appreciate," said Chip Ward, a fellow author and director of the Utah Center for the Book. "She had a delightful, dry sense of humor and was as nice as could be."
Meloy was born in California to Lyle and Patricia Ditzler on June 21, 1946. She and her brothers - Kirk, Grant and John - all became artists. Their father's work took them abroad, and Meloy graduated from high school in England and studied in Italy and France before earning an art degree at Goucher College in Maryland.
Meloy worked as an illustrator and gallery curator, then left to earn a master's degree in environmental science at the University of Montana. She met her husband, Mark, in Helena and married in 1985.
She fell in love with the Four Corners area on a drive through the region, when she stopped for a minute and stayed for a month. In 1989, she and Mark moved to southern Utah, where he worked as a river ranger. Ellen Meloy chronicled the couple's experiences in her 1994 book Raven's Exile: A Season on the Green River.
Her next book, The Last Cheater's Waltz, explored the nature of the Southwest through a most unnatural lens, tracing the development of nuclear weapons. She tempered her message with characteristic touches of humor and humanism.
The Anthropology of Turquoise garnered her national attention and enthusiastic praise from readers and reviewers. The Los Angeles Times wrote that the book "calls us to be mindful of the physical world, to see it - really see it - with fresh eyes," while The Washington Post judged it a "unique, moving, self-effacing delight."
"I don't think I've worked with any writer who was more generous with her time," said Jean Cheney, who organizes book-related events for the Utah Humanities Council. "There was not an egotistical bone, that I know of, in her body. She was never in a hurry. She always had time to talk to people."
A member of the Bluff City Historic Preservation Association, Meloy was an active member of her community, helping save historic sites and create a trail system near the river.
At the time of her death, Meloy was finishing another book, Eating Stone, due to be published soon.