Montana Women Writers: A Geography of the Heart Book

AWARDS:
Winner of the Willa Award for Creative Nonfiction, 2007.

Silver Medal, ForeWord Magazine's Book of the Year Awards, Anthologies category, 2006.

The anthology features forty women writers representing a spectrum of voices and perspectives—ranging from women of the 1800s to contemporary writers, from women of the plains to women in small towns. The collection includes works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry.

Organized into sections featuring writing set in the plains, mountains, and towns, the anthology reflects the state's geography and a broad range of sensibilities, from Mary Ronan's depiction of life in the Jocko Valley in the early 1800s to Deirdre McNamer's vivid portrayal of a settler's train ride west at the turn of the twentieth century in One Sweet Quarrel; from M. J. Smoker's depiction of her dead mother in her poem "From the river's edge" to Melanie Rae Thon's mysterious Didi, a small-town woman who takes in the children that others abandon in her story "Heavenly Creatures." The anthology features book excerpts from Judy Blunt's memoir Breaking Clean, Maile Meloy's Half in Love, and Sandra Alcosser's "What Makes Grizzlies Dance," from Except by Nature.