Amy Leach discusses her new book, The Salt of the Universe: Praise, Songs, and Improvisations (Farrar, Straus & Giroux 2024). We discuss freedom, fundamentalism, and the Ellen White/Ted Wilson prohibition of pickles. 

Leach grew up in Texas and earned her MFA from the Nonfiction Writing Program at the University of Iowa. Her work has appeared in The Best American Essays, The Best American Science and Nature Writing, and numerous other publications. She is the recipient of a Whiting Writers' Award, a Rona Jaffe Foundation Award, and a Pushcart Prize. She is also the author of Things That Are (Milkweed 2012) and The Everybody Ensemble (Farrar, Straus & Giroux 2021). She lives in Montana.