Crazy Woman Creek

My "presentation copies" arrived in the mail last Friday. I don't know quite what to make of having a small verse published in this anthology. "Crazy Woman Creek: Women Rewrite the American West."

This is the third edition of anthologies published about and by women in the contemporary west. The first two were "Leaning into the Wind" and "Woven on the Wind" published by Houghton Mifflin and edited by three of the most dedicated women in the west.

As I read through the list of contributing writers, I am honored to be listed with them. I have trouble taking it all in. There are women of note here. Accomplished women. Contemplative writers. I feel a little like I fell off the wagon and just bounced and landed. I am pleased.

The book was launched in Chadron, NE at the Marie Sandoz center on the college campus there. I was invited but the distance is considerable and not convenient. There will be a reading at the Tattered Cover in Denver as well. It would be grand if Book TV on CSPAN II would cover that. I could see some of my new colleagues.

I do have the acquaintance of one of the other writers. She taught me one semester of live action film making. I admired, respected and learned a lot from her. Some people find a place in your soul. She was one. Her poem in "Crazy Woman Creek" is of the Montana copper mine at which my Finnish Immigrant grandfather worked in the 1800's. It is a blessing when people loop through your life in amazing ways.

Her inspiration sent me on to college at 37 to finish a degree in Library/Media and go on to teach for 20 years. Sixteen of the years in Television Production and Mass Communication.

So "Crazy Woman Creek" is on the shelves!