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 the University of Washington, 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.