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Writing and the West; People, landscape influence authors
Haystacks to history, buffalo to biographies, rodeo to romance, mountains to mysteries, shaping families to science fiction. The topics are as diverse as the Western authors who craft the stories. And their work will be celebrated Friday-Sunday at the High Plains BookFest in Billings.
More than 90 writers will participate in readings, workshops, signings and more.
Billings writer Lise McClendon has gained a national reputation for her mysteries. Her sixth, "Sweet and Lowdown," used World War II as a backdrop, while Montana and Wyoming played into others.
By CHRIS RUBICH
Of The Gazette Staff
Rick and Susie Graetz, of Helena and Big Sky, take Montana history, geography and people and blend them into works that often include aerial photos giving a view of the state that few ever see first-hand.
Tammy Haaland, of Billings, puts a poetic spin on the world and received the Nicholas Roerich Prize from Story Line Press for her work, "Breath in Every Room," which as been used as the spoken words for dramatic productions.
Russell Rowland, formerly of Billings, took inspiration for his first novel, "In Open Spaces," from the lives of his grandparents, who ranched in Eastern Montana. The tale, which followed pioneer rancher through the Depression and beyond, hit the San Francisco Chronicle bestseller list. And he has recently finished its sequel, "The Watershed Years."
They and many others will participate in the bookfest events.
Just what makes an author of the High Plains or West? Like any other writer, it’s a diversity of interests and experiences, drawing inspiration from location and more. Take the examples of bookfest participants Luke Warm Water and Stephen Grace.
Native American voice
Warm Water, an award-winning poet and author of " Commods" and "John Wayne Shot Me," also is an activist and epidemiologist. He has performed in Poetry Slams and at more than 120 venues across the United States, Germany and England.
"My being Lakota, an urban Indian, very much influences my writing," says Warm Water, who is writing poems for a new collection, "Dances With Winos," to be released in late 2005 or early 2006.
He has used regional history in his poems, injecting incidents such as the Fetterman Fight and the massacre at Wounded Knee.
His works, he says, "deal with more of adult contemporary topics and not traditional Native American stories."
Warm Water says he hopes that readers new to his poetry take away more knowledge about Native Americans. He notes that he’s not a spokesman for Native Americans, but wants readers to discover "a depth to Indians, by what I may say about myself or my characters in the stories."
He acknowledges that it would be easy to "stand on my soap box and lambaste white people for what they did and do to Indian people."
"If I do that, people will start closing their ears to me," he continued. "It is not my intention to make white people feel guilty."
Instead, he wants to help others "understand some of the Indian plight and at the same time be entertained" by what he has to say.
"In the end," he says, "it is trying to paint a picture with words, taking the listener/reader along for the ride, showing them humor, anger, happiness, sadness along the way."
Fueling reflection
One of goals – shared with most authors – is to make readers think.
He says people in the Midwest and West Coast seem to "get" his work more than those on the East Coast, perhaps "because of our visibility in the West."
Warm Water sees getting a "good cross-section of Native writers" as important.
"Not all Indians partake in things ‘western,’ such as rodeo or country music," he explains. "Many grow up and live in the city, liking Formula 1 grand prix racing and listening to jazz or punk rock. But our common bond is our heritage, even though we may experience and appreciate life differently."
Warm Water tries not to force himself to write and may go even months without doing so. Other times, he "just can’t stop writing" for several days at a stretch.
"I get inspired to write in unusual times and places …. I have to put the words down that instant. It’s like being showered with something ‘other,’ like no other feeling," he says.
His writing career has been influenced by other Native American writers. Among them are Allison Hedge Coke, who also will be at the High Plains BookFest, and Adrian C. Louis.
"Allison is a great example of a true ‘writer,’ "Warm Water says. "She is immersed in it and does so much good work with teaching Native students and (is) a gifted poet and writer unafraid to bare her soul on the pages."
He also gives credit to other contemporary poets, often Slam poets, including George McKibbens, Jimmy Henry, Shannon Hiatt and Taz.
And what about the influence of White Water’s formal education and current work in epidemiology, in which he holds a master’s degree?
"Poetry don’t pay the bills, and I actively sought out a career in public health that will help the life and health of American Indian people," he says.
He got his degree in the field even though some others didn’t believe he could.
"I believed in ‘myself,’ which was all that counted," he says. "This believing in myself for education also helped my poetry early on. It gave confidence."
He has no formal training in poetry, but learned from poets who took part in open-mic nights, as he did in coffee houses and bars, and from other Slam and established Native poets.
And Warm Water also passes along encouragement to future poets and writers. He enjoys doing workshops and performances in high schools. "Those kids that compliment me or say they were inspired to write a poem because of me really, really warm my heart.
Books
"That’s what it is about. No amount of money I ever got paid for my poetry can take the place of that feeling. I just try to tell them what I know and have learned along the way. To write from their hearts and their guts, trust those feelings, don’t overthink it, don’t write from your head. Poetry should be about feeling, not some crusty academic exercise."
Lure of the West
Stephen Grace, author of the novel, "Under Cottonwoods," felt drawn to the West from a young age.
Grace, who will participate in the High Plains BookFest, divides his time between Laramie, Wyo., and Lafayette, Colo., where his fiancé lives. He lived in Jackson Hole, Wyo., for six years, but grew up in St. Louis, Mo.
"I got my first taste of the West when I was 9" on a road trip to Canyon City, Colo., with an aunt, he recalls.
His novel taps into his years as a whitewater-rafting guide, national-park worker, snowboarding and skiing instructor and time backpacking in Africa and Asia, as well as his work with adults with disabilities and volunteer firefighter and ambulance driver.
The story is about physical and spiritual healing after a climbing accident leaves one of two Wyoming friends partially paralyzed and with brain damage. Grace draws on personal experience with a relative who survived a traumatic brain injury and of a friend’s death from a head injury.
Of people, place
Like a number of other authors from move from elsewhere to Montana and Wyoming, he likes open spaces, mountains, rivers, wildlife, recreation and the "vast sight line" of the West.
"The people, too, … have drawn me to the West," he says.
Grace is intrigued by people in the West who go quietly about their lives and "defined themselves by their actions, rather than their words."
In his work, he tries to inject a sense of place. He looks at the wilderness and how it affects the people who live there. And he’s incorporating that sense of place in another Wyoming-based novel, still is untitled, which he’s finishing.
He sees the West as "a place where people go to reinvent themselves."
But, he notes and his writing reveals, "We can’t escape ourselves … we really bring out lives with us."
Grace grew up surrounded by books and claims "Blood Meridian" and "Moby Dick" as his favorite novels. He also likes the works of Montana writer Tom McGuane and Russian writers Fyodor Dostoevsky (especially "Crime and Punishment") and Alexander Solzhenitsyn.
Grace enjoys the portability of his work as a writer and tries to write first thing every morning – after hitting the coffee pot. But, he says, he can write any time if his schedule changes for travel or other reasons.
He hopes that readers take from his books the opportunity "to enjoy a good story, to enjoy character-based fiction" and develop an empathy for characters, then follow them throughout the book.
Chris Rubich may be reached at 657-1301 or [email protected].
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