Breakfast In Montana

For the final episode of Breakfast in Montana, Russell Rowland and Charles Finn talk to poet Mary Jane Nealon about her remarkable memoir, Beautiful Unbroken, which was the recipient of the Bakeless Prize for Non-fiction, which is awarded by the Breadloaf Foundation. Nealon's account of working with AIDS patients in New York City just after the epidemic broke out is heartbreaking but also filled with a surprising amount of hope about how we can all find peace and redemption through our good works. We also talk about the work of a woman who has served as one of Mary Jane's most trusted mentors, Montana poet Sandra Alcosser, who has been a professor in Missoula for decades, and her collection, A Fish to Feed All Hunger.

Russell Rowland had the opportunity to do an interview with James Lee Burke for Distinctly Montana Magazine about the work of A.B. Guthrie. Both Russell and James are huge Guthrie fans, and Burke got to know him after he moved to Missoula in the '60s. So Burke has some wonderful stories about Guthrie, but also some terrific insights into the importance of his work. Burke also talks a great deal about his own work.

We're happy to introduce a new co-host in this episode, as Montana Book Award winner Charles Finn (On a Benediction of Wind) joins Russell Rowland in a conversation with their old friend Shann Ray. Shann has published several books in a wide variety of genres, including American Copper and his excellent short story debut, American Masculine. As you can probably guess from these titles, Shann frequently writes about various aspects of American culture, particularly in relationship to men, and the book we chose for this discussion is a collection called Blood Fire Vapor Smoke, which is about as eclectic a collection as the title suggests. Shann explores many powerful themes in this collection, particularly the consequences of violence in relationships. And we have started a slightly different approach to our podcast, rather than pairing each author up with a book from an author that is no longer with us, we're asking them to choose a book or writer that has had a powerful influence on their work. And Shann chose a beautiful oral history that was published in 1967 called Cheyenne Memories. John Stands in Timber was a noted historian among the Northern Cheyenne tribe, and a woman named Margot Liberty had the foresight to record his story and publish it. Sadly, John died just a few months before the book came out.

On a Benediction of Wind was just named the winner of the Montana Book Award days before we recorded this episode, so we're thrilled to feature the beautiful poetry of Charles Finn, and talk to him and Barbara Michelman about how they came to create this fabulous collaboration of poetry and black and white photography. Barbara suggested the second book, and it was a perfect choice, as Evelyn Cameron has become renowned for her early photographs of rural Montana. Cameron's photographs were largely unknown until a writer from back east, Donna Lucey, heard that a woman who lived near Terry, Montana had a collection of glass plate negatives in her basement, and Lucey gained the trust of Janet Williams and gained access to this remarkable early day collection of incredible photographs.

Elise Atchison's debut novel, Crazy Mountain, was the recipient of the Eludia Award, an award given to first-time women novelists over forty. She worked for over ten years on this book, which features a completely different point of view for each chapter. The novel takes place in a fictional region where the typical struggle is playing out between people who have lived in the region want to preserve what they have while outsiders move in with the idea of developing the area for their own purposes. And for this episode, we are breaking away from our normal format a little by featuring a second writer who is still with us. Tom McGuane is one of the most highly regarded writers in America, and has lived in Paradise Valley since the '70s. Although much of his later work takes place in Montana, we chose an earlier novel, Panama, that is set in Key West, Florida, and tells the story of a man struggling to find meaning in a life most people would dream of.

This episode pairs one of the most esteemed Native American authors of our time with a writer who started writing because of his influence and guidance. Debra Magpie Earling took her very first writing class from James Welch at Washington State University and would later study with him again at Cornell. Earling's debut novel Perma Red made a huge impression on the literary community when it came out in 2002, but it has been out of print for many years. Thankfully, Milkweed Editions has just issued a beautiful new version of the book. And we will also talk about Welch's novel Indian Lawyer, which served as a bit of a departure from the themes that he covered in most of his work. We will also talk about the first Native American Lit Festival that just took place in Missoula in July 2022, and is named after Mr. Welch.

For this episode, we interview the current poet laureate of Montana, Missoula poet Mark Gibbons. And Mark asked us to talk about an old friend of his, David Dale, who published three collections during his lifetime but never got much recognition.

For this episode, we were so honored to have a chance to sit down with our old friend, poet Greg Keeler. Greg taught at Montana State University for forty years, and toward the end of his career, he started writing a sonnet every day. He continues this practice to this day, but in 2018, Elk River Books put out a beautiful collection of 180 of these sonnets called The Bluebird Run. And in his very unique way, Greg asked us to make an unusual pairing for this episode, requesting that we talk about a woman who wrote a journal about her experience as a night nurse in Butte back in 1909. Selections from Beatrice Murphy's journal were included in the anthology The Last Best Place, and it's a shame she never got published anywhere else because her writing is delightful.

For this episode, we had the pleasure of talking with our good friend Tom Harpole about his collection, Regarding Willingness. Tom wrote for national magazines for decades, but this collection consists of personal essays that Tom wrote through the years about his adventures in various parts of the world, including skydiving in Russia, and going along for a ride with one of the ice road truckers in Alaska. He also nearly cut off his own arm with a chainsaw, so Tom's life has never been dull. We paired his book with what is considered a classic Montana adventure story, Tough Trip Through Paradise, by Andrew Garcia. This book was written in the early twentieth century and was tucked away in a safe for decades before an editor named Ben Stein from Livingston discovered the manuscript and polished it up and got it published. The story's veracity has come into question over the years, but there's no questioning Mr. Garcia's ability to tell a captivating story.

This past year marked the twenty-fifth anniversary of the publication of Undaunted Courage, which has become known as the bible for the Lewis and Clark Expedition. This book, written by Stephen Ambrose, had the feel of a novel, and captured the interest of millions of readers just in time for the 200th anniversary of the Voyage of Discovery. Ambrose's book has also inspired many people to explore this expedition in their own unique ways, including our two guests for this episode. Stephenie Ambrose-Tubbs, who is obviously related to Stephen, met her husband on one of her family's first of many expeditions of their own along the Lewis and Clark Trail, and she has written a wonderful book called Why Sacagawea Deserves a Day Off and Other Lessons from the Lewis and Clark Trail. And Corrie Williamson, an accomplished poet who grew up in Virginia, the heart of Lewis and Clark's upbringing, offers her own unique take on Lewis and Clark with her collection The River Where you Forgot My Name. The title is based on the fact that William Clark named the Judith River in Montana after a young girl he would eventually marry. The only problem was her name was actually Julia, and we would all love to be a fly on the wall when Clark came around to explaining this faux pas.

Ryan Busse worked as a top executive in the gun industry for several decades. "I sold millions of guns," he says. But Busse became increasingly disillusioned with the NRA's influence on the industry he loved, to the point that he felt compelled to write about his experience. Gunfight is part memoir, part expose on how this industry has fallen under the influence of the NRA and the Republican party. Ryan's take on the Second Amendment and using is as an excuse for being able to own whatever guns and as many guns as you want is particularly fascinating. We paired Mr. Busse's book with one of our favorite books about Montana's early pioneer years, the memoir by Teddy "Blue" Abbott, who went on his first cattle drive from Texas to Montana when he was 14 years old. Abbott explodes most of the myths about what it was like to be a cowboy in the early days of cattle ranching in Montana.

Thomas Savage was a novelist who grew up in Beaverhead County, Montana, on a sheep ranch. He published a dozen novels but was sadly overlooked while he was alive, despite receiving resounding critical acclaim for his entire career. His work was rediscovered around the turn of the century, thanks in large part to the praises of Annie Proulx and Tom McGuane, and his best novel, The Power of the Dog, is about to appear on the big screen in a film adapted by Oscar winning screenwriter Jane Campion (The Piano), who also directed it. Alan Weltzien has recently published an outstanding biography of Thomas Savage that not only digs deeply into his personal life, which was complicated by chronic alcohol abuse, and the fact that he lived as a family man despite the fact that he knew from a young age that he was homosexual, as well as a life-long struggle to find the recognition so many people knew he deserved. Weltzien has been researching Savage's work for more than twenty years, and his insights into each of his novels, as well as his complicated relationship with Montana, is extremely well written and meticulously researched, thanks in large part to the cooperation Alan received from Savage's surviving family.

John Maclean, son of Montana icon Norman Maclean, has become a fine writer in his own right, and he recently published what he calls 'a chronicle' of his life with his father and his own relationship to Norman's enormously successful novella, A River Runs Through It. Home Waters is a terrific tale that explores the importance and complicated nature of relationships between fathers and sons, and about how he and his father both become fascinated with fishing and fires. We had the great pleasure of talking with John for a solid hour about what this experience was like for him.

For our twenty-second episode, we had the great pleasure of sitting down for over an hour with Doug Peacock, who has been fighting to save the grizzly bear for decades now, and when you read his fabulous book, Grizzly Years, you get a deeper understanding of why he has such a passion for this cause. After Doug returned from his tour in Vietnam, during the worst years of the war, he escaped into the wilderness to try and find some healing, and Grizzly Years is his account of that period in his life, as well as a powerful memoir of his time in Vietnam.  And we pair Mr. Peacock with one of his dear friends, and one of the legends of Montana literature, William Kittredge, who was director of the Creative Writing program at the University of Montana for decades, and also co-edited one of the classic anthologies of the West, The Last Best Place. We talk about his book The Nature of Generosity.

For this episode, we're breaking out of the box a little by exploring the world of literature from the perspective of a musician. Joey Running Crane is an accomplished recording artist from the Blackfeet Reservation. He has recorded with several bands, including the fabulously named Goddamit Boyhowdy, and Dirty Bird. His solo album, Dog Winter, was released in 2019. And part of the reason we chose to talk to Joey was because he is a huge James Welch fan. James Welch is one of the most highly acclaimed writers in Montana's rich literary history, and he also grew up on the Blackfeet Reservation. So Joey gives us some fabulous insights into what makes Welch such a powerful writer about the Native American experience. We chose one of Welch's lesser known novels, The Death of Jim Loney.

For our nineteenth episode, we feature one of our most recent poet laureates, Tami Haaland and two of her poetry collections, When We Wake in the Night, and What Does Not Return. And we also talk about one of Tami's mentors, Madeline DeFrees, who taught at the University of Montana Creative Writing Department for about twelve years and was a highly regarded poet around the country. We discuss her collection Blue Dusk.

For this episode, Russell and Aaron interview Montana's current Poet Laureate, Melissa Kwasny, about her non-fiction book, Putting on the Dog, which is about the nature of clothes and where they come from. Melissa spent five years traveling all over the world, visiting places a mink farm in Denmark, to explore how people go about growing and preparing the materials we use to make our clothing.

For this episode of Breakfast in Montana, Aaron and Russell talk about two very powerful collections of stories, Black Cherries, published in 1931 by Grace Stone Coates, and The Ballet at the Moose Lodge, by Caroline Patterson.

For this episode, Aaron and Russell discuss one of the classic novels of Native American literature, The Surrounded, published in 1936 by D'Arcy McNickle, along with an amazing collection of contemporary poetry by Sean Hill, who lives in Helena and studied at Stanford, as well as the University of Houston.

For Episode Fifteen, Aaron Parrett and Russell Rowland have a fabulous conversation with John Taliaferro, biographer extraordinaire, about his new book, Grinnell, about George Bird Grinnell, the man who was called the Father of American Conservation at the time of his death. We also talk about a couple of Grinnell's own books, The Fighting Cheyennes, and Blackfoot Lodge Tales.

For this episode of Breakfast in Montana, a podcast about Montana books, we discuss two award-winning novels, both by women. The Flicker of Old Dreams, by Susan Henderson, won the Spur Award for Fiction, as well as the Willa Cather Award, and is a finalist for the High Plains Book Award for fiction. Mildred Walker's Winter Wheat, which was published in 1945, was a finalist for the National Book Award. These two finely crafted novels explore many of the same themes of the dynamics of small towns in Montana and the complicated relationships between young people and their parents in these places.

In this episode, we discuss two books from Missoula writers. Chris La Tray's book One Sentence Journal won this year's Montana Book Award, and it's an interesting collection of vignettes, and aphorisms that take you deep into the heart of a man who is searching for his place in Montana. We believe the second book is one of the most overlooked novels in Montana history, but long-time Missoula resident Rick DeMarinis. DeMarinis published many novels, but The Burning Women of Far Cry was his best, and it was recently republished by Drumlummon Institute in hopes of giving it the following it so richly deserves.

For episode twelve, we discuss two books by legendary Livingston writers. Tim Cahill was a writer for Rolling Stone back when they were first getting off the ground, and went on to co-found Outside Magazine, which published most of the stories in his collection, Jaguars Ripped My Flesh. William 'Gatz' Hjortsberg published many novels, the most well-known of which was Falling Angel, which was made into a film called Angel Heart, starring Robert DeNiro, Mickey Rourke, and Lisa Bonet.

In our 11th Episode, we talk about the latest award-winning collection of poetry by Missoula poet Henrietta Goodman, as well as The Hawkline Monster, a gothic Western by acclaimed writer Richard Brautigan.

For their tenth episode of Breakfast in Montana, Montana authors Russell Rowland and Aaron Parrett discuss the poetry of former Montana Poet Laureate Earl Craig, discussing his most recent collection, Woods and Clouds Interchangeable. and from the final collection of poetry by Butte poet Ed Lahey, titled Moving On.

For their ninth episode of Breakfast in Montana, Montana writers Russell Rowland and Aaron Parrett take a break from their usual format of discussing two Montana books to honor a writer who has published more than 80 novels. Richard Wheeler has been a finalist for ten Spur Awards, the highest honor for Western literature, and won the award six times. And he didn't get published until he was almost fifty!! Hear more about his story and his writing here.

In the eighth episode of Breakfast in Montana, authors Aaron Parrett and Russell Rowland discuss two outstanding memoirs. The first is The Story of Mary MacLane, also known as I Await the Devil's Coming, a worldwide sensation when it was published in 1902 by a nineteen-year-old aristocrat from Butte. The second is Driven: A White-Knuckled Ride to Heartbreak and Back, a book that explores Melissa Stephenson's experience with her brother's suicide. Stephenson's unique approach to this story is through the cars that she and her family owned over the course of their lives.

For this episode, Montana writers Aaron Parrett and Russell Rowland discuss two poetry collections by poets from Helena, Notes from a Novel by Frieda Fligelman and Natalie Peeterse's Black Birds, Blue Horse, the winner of the Gold Line Press Chapbook competition. We also interview Natalie about her writing process as well as her own small press, Open Country.

For this episode of Breakfast in Montana, writers Russell Rowland and Aaron Parrett discuss two books that should have received more acclaim, Matt Pavelich's short story collection, Survivors Said, and a 1979 novel published by Dirck Van Sickle called Montana Gothic.

For the fifth episode of Breakfast in Montana, Russell Rowland and Aaron Parrett discuss two of the most commercially successful Montana writers, Ivan Doig and Jamie Ford. We talk about the mysterious nature of successful books, and Jamie Ford tells us about his responsibility to write about the stories of Chinese immigrants in America.

In this episode of Breakfast in Montana, hosts Russell Rowland and Aaron Parrett discuss two books by Montana authors, The Hanging Tree by Dorothy Johnson, and Shaking Out the Dead, by Kate Cholewa. The Hanging Tree was made into a film starring Gary Cooper, another Montanan, one of several Johnson stories that made it to film. And yet she has never gained quite the status of male writers from her era like A. B. Guthrie. Cholewa's novel explores many similar topics, and we discuss the myth about women writers having a different style.

For the third episode of Breakfast in Montana, we discuss A Good Day to Die, by Jim Harrison, author of Legends of the Fall and other classic novels about the West, as well as a novel by his daughter Jamie Harrison Potenberg called The Widow Nash. There are several interesting parallels between these two novels, despite the fact that they take place in different times and despite the fact that they are very different writers. But one thing we both agreed on...Jamie got the writing gene. The prose in each of these novels is stellar.

For this episode, we discuss two mysteries, the first being Death and the Good Life, one of only two novels written by notable Montana poet Richard Hugo, who was instrumental in developing the reputation for the Creative Writing department at the University of Montana. The second is a terrific mystery called A Bloom of Bones, by Allen Morris Jones, who is currently the editor of Big Sky Journal, as well as the publisher for Bangtail Press and a wonderful writer in his own right. Both of these novels feature protagonists that poets, which makes for an interesting discussion.

In this first episode, Russell and Aaron talk about two books from Butte, Mile High, Mile Deep by Richard K. O'Malley, and Brave Deeds, by David Abrams. These two books represent two of the interesting facets of Montana literature in that one of them, (Mile High) was written while O'Malley was the Associated Press Bureau Chief in Paris. But it's considered the quintessential Butte novel. The other, Brave Deeds, is about the war in Iraq, but it was written in Butte. So we discuss what constitutes a Montana book, what it is about Butte that has inspired so many good books, and what some of the common themes are that emerge from this fascinating town.