Lopez wrote Arctic Dreams (for which he won the National Book Award) and many other works that deeply synthesized reporting and essay form and science writing. He had recently lost land, housing, and archives to one of Oregon’s dreadful Labor Day fires. “Lopez was still being lauded in his final days, with an induction into the American Academy of Arts and Letters and with the literary organization Sun Valley Writers’ Conference announcing this week that it had awarded him its inaugural Writer in the World Prize, which recognizes and honors a writer whose work expresses a ‘rare combination of literary talent and moral imagination, helping us to better understand the world and our place in it.'” – Oregonian