Why
I can't read Wallace Stegner &
Other Essays: A Tribal Voice by
Elizabeth Cook-Lynn
"Elizabeth
Cook-Lynn identifies and examines the many forms of deep-seated racial
discriminatory practices that Native Americans have endured since their
first contact with Europeans and Christianity. She calls to us to look
more deeply into the real agenda that is the root cause of Native American
problems. Her "Tribal Voice" does not pretend to be a handbook of "how
tos." Nor does it just cite the many injustices. She relates in a more
personal way how these discriminatory acts contributed to the problems
and assault against the First Nations." - From a review
by Lydia Whirlwind Soldier
Woven
on the Wind : Women Write About
Friendship in the Sagebrush West by
Nancy Curtis, Linda M. Hasselstrom, Gaydell M. Collier (Editors)
May
2001
A
fine collection of essays, poems and personal narratives about life in
"sagebrush country," where friendships must weather numerous hardships,
this tough and tender new work continues the collaborative effort begun
in Leaning
into the Wind (1997). The editors, who all manage working ranches,
know firsthand the harsh realities of the American West and the bolstering
power of friendship among women there. . . . The editors gracefully present
writing by more than 150 women like them. While all celebrate female camaraderie
vividly distinctive against the backdrop of a vast, stark and often lonely
terrain each tells a unique story.. . . [the stories] illuminate the worn
paths between farms and ranches and the simple pleasure of sitting on the
back of a pickup sharing a cup of tea with a kindred spirit. - Publishers
Weekly
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Zone web site
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Amazon.com
through the links on this
page.
Hard
Twist: Western Ranch Women by
Barbara Van Cleve (Photographer), Spike Van Cleve Thirteen
chapters, each devoted to a ranch woman or a family group, form the heart
of the book. Each chapter, with as many as 12 or 14 photographs, provides
resonant images of the women's lives and of their elemental landscape.
Some of the pictures are documentary: pretty young women roping steers
or branding calves, a middle-aged platinum blonde riding a bucking bronc
at a rodeo (some of the women, like some cowboys, make part of their living
at rodeo or running dude ranches). The most intriguing images are the face-to-the-camera
portraits for which Ms. Van Cleve's subjects were willing to sit. The very
formality -- and implied collaboration -- of these photographs goes beyond
the documentation of "a way of life" and begins to pierce the veneer of
life style to enter the privacy of character. The candor of the faces is
remarkable, and bespeaks the qualities these women profess in the interviews
to revere: steadfastness, self-reliance, the rigors of hard work in even
the hardest weather. The outfits are impressive too -- chaps and dusters,
spurs and boots stiffened with mud, the great outlandish hats of our cowboy
movie heroes, worn here by women.
Vermont
Farm Women by
Peter Miller I
loved everything about this book from the feel of the cover to the choice
of the women portrayed inside. The faces of the women were so familiar,
I felt like I'd known each of them personally, even though they farm in
Vermont, I farm out West, and we probably will never meet in person.
I love having a book on the coffee table that reflects rural women's lives
and inspires conversation. --Rural Womyn Zone
Breaking
Clean by
Judy Blunt
Blunt
was born in 1954 and raised on a ranch in Montana in an area so isolated
that at 13, she had to pack a bag and move to town to attend high school.
Simply by recounting stories of growing up as a rural female, she gives
us insight into why strong rural women reject the feminist label. The Zone
has been trying to bridge a gap between feminist thought and rural women's
experiences. Judy Blunt stands tall on that bridge. Carolyn
Sachs said, "one challenge faced by scholars involves how to a...seriously
face and understand the different contexts of rural women's lives."
We hope Carolyn reads Judy. Review
of Braking Clean by Rural Womyn Zone
Why
I can't read Wallace Stegner
