Montana Book Festival 2019

Three authors with recent memoirs read from recent works and discuss the process of writing about family.

Mother Winter by Sophia Shalmiyev

Russian sentences begin backward, Sophia Shalmiyev tells us on the first page of her striking, lyrical memoir, Mother Winter. To understand the end of her story we must go back to her beginning.

Born to a Russian mother and an Azerbaijani father, Shalmiyev was raised in the stark oppressiveness of 1980s Leningrad (now St. Petersburg). An imbalance of power and the prevalence of antisemitism in her homeland led her father to steal Shalmiyev away, emigrating to America, abandoning her estranged mother, Elena. At age eleven, Shalmiyev found herself on a plane headed west, motherless and terrified of the new world unfolding before her.

Now a mother herself, in Mother Winter Shalmiyev depicts in urgent vignettes her emotional journeys as an immigrant, an artist, and a woman raised without her mother. She tells of her early days in St. Petersburg, a land unkind to women, wayward or otherwise; her tumultuous pit-stop in Italy as a refugee on her way to America; the life she built for herself in the Pacific Northwest, raising two children of her own; and ultimately, her cathartic voyage back to Russia as an adult, where she searched endlessly for the alcoholic mother she never knew. Braided into her physical journey is a metaphorical exploration of the many surrogate mothers Shalmiyev sought out in place of her own—whether in books, art, lovers, or other lost souls banded together by their misfortunes.

Mother Winter is the story of Shalmiyev’s years of travel, searching, and forging meaningful connection with the worlds she occupies—the result is a searing observation of the human heart and psyche’s many shades across time and culture. As critically acclaimed author Michelle Tea says, “with sparse, poetic language Shalmiyev builds a personal history that is fractured and raw; a brilliant, lovely ache.”

The Deer Camp by Dean Kuipers

Some families have to dig hard to find the love that holds them together. Some have to grow it out of the ground.

Bruce Kuipers was good at hunting, fishing, and working, but not at much else that makes a real father or husband. Conflicted, angry, and a serial cheater, he destroyed his relationship with his wife, Nancy, and alienated his three sons-journalist Dean, woodsman Brett, and troubled yet brilliant fisherman Joe. He distrusted people and clung to rural America as a place to hide.

So when Bruce purchased a 100-acre hunting property as a way to reconnect with his sons, they resisted. The land was the perfect bait, but none of them knew how to be together as a family. Conflicts arose over whether the land-an old farm that had been degraded and reduced to a few stands of pine and blowing sand-should be left alone or be actively restored. After a decade-long impasse, Bruce acquiesced, and his sons proceeded with their restoration plan. What happened next was a miracle of nature.

Dean Kuipers weaves a beautiful and surprising story about the restorative power of land and of his own family, which so desperately needed healing. Heartwarming and profound, The Deer Camp is the perfect story of fathers, sons, and the beauty and magic of the natural world.

The Eclipse I Call Father by David Axelrod

In The Eclipse I Call Father: Essays on Absence, David Axelrod recalls a balmy night in May 1970 when he vowed to allow no one and nothing he loves to pass from this life without praise, even if it meant praising the most bewildering losses. In each of these fourteen essays Axelrod delivers on that vow as he ranges across topics as diverse as marriage, Japanese poetry, Craftsman design, Old English riddles, racism, extinction, fatherhood, mountaineering, predatory mega-fauna, street fighting, trains, the Great Depression, and the effects of climate change—accretions of absence that haunt the writer and will likewise haunt readers.
The essays in this collection grew from a ten-year period when the author found himself periodically living and working abroad, wondering why foreign landscapes haunted him more than the familiar landscapes of the inland Pacific Northwest he called home. Each place had a long history of habitation, but at home he was blind, unable to see past the surfaces of things. Axelrod examines many aspects of that phenomenon in these pages, framing surface realities and imagining the scale and scope of that surface, but also trying to sense what is absent or changed, and how, despite its absence, the unseen accretes to ever-greater densities and persists as something uncanny.
Curious, alert, and keenly observant, these essays probe the boundaries between what is here and what is gone, what is present and what is past, in elegant prose. Readers familiar with Axelrod’s poetry will find a new facet of his lyrical gifts, while those encountering his work for the first time will be richly rewarded by the discovery of this Northwest literary talent.

This panel will feature two memoirists who have detailed enormous adventures in memoir. Susan Purvis spent 20 years training avalanche rescue dogs and search dogs, a journey she wrote about in Go Find. Heather Hansman, meanwhile, wrote "Downriver" about a raft trip down the entirety of the Green River from Wyoming to Utah, in “an energizing mix of travelogue and investigative journalism,” according to Publishers Weekly.

One of the first books from the #MeToo movement, INDELIBLE IN THE HIPPOCAMPUS is a truly intersectional collection of essays, fiction, and poetry. These original texts sound the voices of black, Latinx, Asian, Filipinx, queer, and trans writers, to name but a few, and say “me too” 22 times.

The book deals with a number of important questions, such as: how do individuals deal with and process the trauma of sexual abuse? How can people and communities support each other in dealing with this trauma? How can society as a whole move from the moment of #MeToo reckoning to transformation and positive change?

Whether reflecting on their teenage selves or their modern-day workplaces, each contributor to this book approaches the subject with unforgettable authenticity and strength. Together these pieces create a portrait of cultural sea-change, offering the reader a deeper understanding of this complex, galvanizing pivot in contemporary consciousness.

This event will offer those attending a space for creative reflection and discussion about this vitally important and highly topical issue, and consider where the #MeToo movement goes from here.

This panel event will feature the editor of the book, Shelly Oria, alongside a number of acclaimed and award-winning writers from Missoula. Each panelist will read an excerpt from INDELIBLE IN THE HIPPOCAMPUS alongside their own work, and there will then be a discussion about the issues and themes raised in the book.

Susan Kay Anderson, Mezzanine

Mezzanine is part animal dream, part love song / song of despair about the worlds that drift through the night janitor’s empire, and part eternal desire to make meaning of the illogical evidence before us. The glittering poems by Susan Kay Anderson speak their own realities, talk amongst each other, and shape a world informed by the refusal to look away, desire for connection, and absolute attention to the details. It’s this world of matter, how it drifts in and out of other matter, all of it stories and important, that informs this exciting work.
–Jennifer Boyden, author of The Mouths of Grazing Things


Virginia Barrett's poetry invites an excursion into a varied landscape of voice and form. Stylistically, poems range from intimate lyrics to expansive narratives. The work can be playful, meditative, visionary, challenging, and open to experimentation. Her thematic span uses a wide lens. Poems include female-centric pieces on childhood and family history, ekphrastic works exploring issues that artists often face in unsupportive (even hostile) societies, urban-inspired musings, adventures into myth, and mystical encounters in the natural world. What weaves throughout her work is a deep need to look out at the world, to gaze as does a painter, to absorb what the eyes see and to offer it back—altered and transfigured in some way.

Jessica Jones, Bitterroot

Montana Poet Laureate, Lowell Jaeger, writes: "Bitterroot is a collection of poems written by a young teacher who is herself still learning. The best teachers are the ones who don’t offer easy answers for hard questions, and JessicaJones’ poems raise a galaxy of hard questions. Bitterroot asks the reader to consider the complexities of Native and non-Native co-inhabitation in northwest Montana, valleys and vistas of triumph and hardship. In “Hauling Wood,” a neighbor loans the teacher his ex-wife’s snow pants and boots, which causes the teacher to feel “small and important at the same time.” In reading these verses, I feel small and important, and you will too. The spirit of Bitterroot is this: Let’s learn together and never stop. And let’s be grateful to those who teach us, everyone, everywhere.

A poetry/prose reading and a Q&A with Northwest writers who have all been published in Willow Springs Magazine. Willow Springs is the top-ranked literary journal affiliated with the Eastern Washington University MFA program.

Join us in a discussion around art and writing with a zinester-turned-author, a graphic novelist and a comic artist! 

Three women speak to the immigrant story.

Nina Murray was born and raised in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv. An American poet and translator, she is the author of two books of poetry, Alcestis in the Underworld (Circling Rivers, 2019) and  Minimize Considered (Finishing Line Press, 2018), and the translator of  Oksana Zabuzhko’s Museum of Abandoned Secrets (Amazon Crossing, 2013), and Peter Aleshkovsky’s Fish: A History of One Migration (Russian Life Books, 2010) and Stargorod (Russian Life Books, 2013). She holds advanced degrees in linguistics and creative writing and regularly publishes original poetry, book reviews, and translations.

Born to a Russian mother and an Azerbaijani father, Sophia Shalmiyev was raised in the stark oppressiveness of 1980s Leningrad (now St. Petersburg). An imbalance of power and the prevalence of antisemitism in her homeland led her father to steal Shalmiyev away, emigrating to America, abandoning her estranged mother, Elena. At age eleven, Shalmiyev found herself on a plane headed west, motherless and terrified of the new world unfolding before her.

Raki Kopernik is a queer, Jewish fiction and poetry writer. She is the author of The Things You Left (Unsolicited Press 2020), The Memory House (The Muriel Press 2019) which was a finalist for the Red Hen Press Nonfiction Award, and The Other Body (Dancing Girl Press 2017). Her work has been published in New Flash Review Fiction, Blue Lyra Review, El Balazo, Duende, and others. It has also been shortlisted and nominated for several awards, including the Pushcart Prize for fiction. She lives in Minneapolis. You can find her here: https://rakikopernik.wixsite.com/mysite and follow her on instagram @rakikopernik

Four different writers who deal with the natural world in their work come together to discuss their process and muse.

Chris La Tray is a writer, a walker, and photographer. His freelance writing and/or photography has appeared in various regional and national anthologies and periodicals. His first book, One-Sentence Journal: Short Poems and Essays From the World At Large won the 2018 Montana Book Award. Chris is Chippewa-Cree Métis, and is an enrolled member of the Little Shell Tribe of Chippewa Indians. He lives in Missoula, MT.

Heather Durham is the author of Going Feral: Field Notes on Wonder and Wanderlust, an examination of a life of wandering in wild nature. With the scientific knowledge and observation skills of an ecologist and the existential inquiry of a philosopher, Heather immerses readers with all their senses in adventures, wanderings, and musings in wild places around the United States. She faces solitude on a deserted island in Maine, spelunks in bat caves in New Hampshire, chases herons on the Florida Gulf coast, and hides out with flamingos in urban Utah. She locks eyes with a cougar in Colorado, traps and bands hawks in Nevada, surveys owls in Oregon, and communes with coyotes in Washington.

As a nomadic and often reclusive introvert, Heather grapples with discomfort among her own kind and resists traditional paths to fulfillment. It is ultimately her intimate bond with the natural world wherever she roams that offers meaning, solace, and a sense of belonging both within and apart from human communities. Part reverential nature writing, part soul-searching memoir, Going Feral is the story of a human animal learning to belong to the earth.

Heather Hansman, Downriver

The Green River, the most significant tributary of the Colorado River, runs 730 miles from the glaciers of Wyoming to the desert canyons of Utah. Over its course it meanders through ranches, cities, national parks, endangered fish habitats, and some of the most significant natural gas fields in the country, as it provides water for 33 million people. Stopped up by dams, slaked off by irrigation, and dried up by cities, the Green is crucial, overused, and at risk, now more than ever.
 
Fights over the river’s water, and what’s going to happen to it in the future, are longstanding, intractable, and only getting worse as the west gets hotter and drier and more people depend on the river with each passing year. As a former raft guide and an environmental reporter, Heather Hansman knew these fights were happening, but she felt driven to see them from a different perspective—from the river itself. So she set out on a journey, in a one-person inflatable pack raft, to paddle the river from source to confluence and see what the experience might teach her. Mixing lyrical accounts of quiet paddling through breathtaking beauty with nights spent camping solo and lively discussions with farmers, city officials, and other people met along the way, Downriver is the story of that journey, a foray into the present—and future—of water in the west.

Antonia Malchik has written essays and articles for Aeon, The Atlantic, Orion, GOOD, High Country News, and a variety of other publications. Her first book, A Walking Life, about the past and future of walking’s role in our shared humanity, is published by Da Capo Press, a division of Hachette. She lives in northwest Montana.​

Theodore Roosevelt, John Muir, Gifford Pinchot, and George Bird Grinnell are the men featured in these three books by Montana authors. Join us in a reading and discussion about the history and future of Montana's vast lands.

Grinnell: America's Environmental Pioneer and His Restless Drive to Save the West by John Taliaferro

Drawing on forty thousand pages of Grinnell’s correspondence and dozens of his diaries, Taliaferro reveals a man whose deeds and high-mindedness earned him a lustrous peerage, from presidents to chiefs, Audubon to Aldo Leopold, John Muir to Gifford Pinchot, Edward S. Curtis to Edward H. Harriman. Throughout his long life, Grinnell was bound by family and sustained by intimate friendships, toggling between the East and the West. As Taliaferro’s enthralling portrait demonstrates, it was this tension that wound Grinnell’s nearly inexhaustible spring and honed his vision―a vision that still guides the imperiled future of our national treasures.

Natural Rivals: John Muir, Gifford Pinchot, and the Creation of America's Public Lands by John Clayton

John Muir, the most famous naturalist in American history, protected Yosemite, co-founded the Sierra Club, and is sometimes called the Father of the National Parks. A poor immigrant, self-taught, individualistic, and skeptical of institutions, his idealistic belief in the spiritual benefits of holistic natural systems led him to a philosophy of preserving wilderness unimpaired. Gifford Pinchot founded the U.S. Forest Service and advised his friend Theodore Roosevelt on environmental policy. Raised in wealth, educated in privilege, and interested in how institutions and community can overcome failures in individual virtue, Pinchot’s pragmatic belief in professional management led him to a philosophy of sustainably conserving natural resources.

Theodore Roosevelt & Bison Restoration on the Great Plains by Keith Aune and Glenn Plumb

Troubled by the rapid disappearance of the bison at the end of the 19th Century progressive thinkers began a public discussion calling for the preservation of wild-lands and wildlife in North America. Activists, like Theodore Roosevelt, rose to the call putting a bison restoration plan into action that was incomprehensible during the emerging industrial revolution. Preserving nature and saving iconic wildlife was not an essential ingredient to the plan for national progress. Fighting against the tide of an increasingly industrialized nation these champions raised public conscience saving American bison from extinction. The battle to restore bison in the early 1900's was catalyst for an entire conservation movement spearheaded by the President of our United States, Theodore Roosevelt. America continues to nurture a complicated connection to American bison as it completes the conservation legacy he began.

I'm going to read a story from Great American Desert, a clifi collection that spans the prehistoric to the scifi. Surely that will make people talk! And I hope there will be questions.

In this panel, three very different artists come together to discuss and celebrate the diverse landscape that has been the muse of artists and writers for centuries.

Female voices in fiction, writing the reimagined history for young adults.

Join us as author Nicole Zelniker and CutBank-sponsored poet, writer, and literary editor Shonda Buchanan speak about navigating the kaleidoscope of identity. CutBank Poetry Editor Danielle Cooney moderates.

The poetry of parenthood has never been more diverse or transgressive. Gone are the days of simple odes to flower-picking toddlers. Now, poems of parenthood are studded with the rhinestones of technology, social media, police violence, and the perils of a warming planet. Where do these concerns intersect with the children in our poems? And how can we write our children into a world as unimaginably complicated and compromised as the one we live in today? Six parent poets will answer these questions through a spirited reading from their recently published collections of poems.

Four novelists from different genres discuss how to write about love. Topics will include: What constitutes a love story? How do writers avoid cliche when writing about marriage? How much detail is too much in a sex scene? When are graphic sex scenes justified? How do you write about romantic connection—getting beyond sex? Is it okay to disappoint readers about which characters end up in relationship? The writers hope for a lively discussion that includes audience participation!  

Four Montana history writers share their thoughts and experiences in bringing Montana’s past alive:
In Montanans in the Great War: Open Warfare Over There by Ken Robison

The Great War, World War I, continued with fury in the Spring of 1918. In a dramatic race against time, could American Yanks play the key role in stemming the German tide? Join Montanans as they engaged in their first major battle at Cantigny, a day to remember in history. Join Montana Marines in the bloodiest day in their history, as they became “Devil Dogs,” charging through hell on earth at Belleau Wood. Blunt the vital German surge toward Paris with Montana Yanks of the 3rd “Rock of the Marne” Division. Find yourself behind German lines with Montanans in the Lost Battalion facing death at every moment. Follow Montanans of the Wild West Division as they storm “over the top” into the Argonne Forest shouting “Powder River Let ‘Er Buck.” Serve with young Seaman Mike Mansfield, future legendary senator, on convoy duty against lurking German U-boats. Join adventurous Montana nurses, “hello girls,” Navy Yeomanettes, YMCA workers as they blazed new gender roles.

Open Warfare Over There is the story of young and vibrant Montanans of all ethnicities as they fought for elusive democracy at home in this world war to end all wars. Award-winning historian Ken Robison brings Montana’s men and women to life, at home and abroad, as they relate their stories of the Great War.


In Montana Horse Racing: A History Brenda Wahler brings together the social, political, and economic history in Montana's most ubiquitous pastimes: horse racing.  For centuries, on prairie grasslands, dusty streets and racing ovals, everyday Montanans participated in the sport of kings. More than a century after the Shohone brought horses to the region, Lewis and Clark's Nez Perce guides staged horse races at Traveler's Rest. In response to the hazardous street races of the territorial era, the Montana legislature granted communities authority to ban "immoderate riding or driving." Helena led the way to respectable racing, with the first territorial fair in 1868. Montana-born Spokane won the Kentucky Derby in 1889, challenging statehood itself as the top news story of the year. Soon, Marcus Daly built oval tracks and glitzy grandstands and in 1890, a horse named Bob Wade set a world record in Butte that stood until 1958. 20th-century horse racing rose and fell with changing times, and in the 21st century is an endangered sport, but with historic support from Native communities and other dedicated horsemen, horses still run under the Big Sky.

Janelle M. Olberding will read from and discuss her book Butte and the 1918 Influenza Pandemic, published earlier this year.

In the final months of 1918, the Spanish flu that circled the globe hit the city of Butte, killing between one and two percent of the population in fewer than six months. In Butte and the 1918 Influenza Pandemic, Olberding recounts the emotional struggle of the men and women who fought against, suffered from, and succumbed to influenza on the "Richest Hill on Earth." Why did influenza take such a toll on this unique, diverse, and darkly beautiful city, and what lessons can we learn from the tragedy of 1918? 

Bob Quinn is a pioneering organic grain farmer. After leaving Montana to get a PhD, he returned to his family farm and began to make changes to add value. Quinn began milling his own grain and then transitioned his farm to organic. Later, he discovered khorasan, an ancient Egyptian wheat, and created the KAMUT brand to share its benefits with the world., His book, “Grain by Grain: A Quest to Revive Ancient Wheat, Rural Jobs, and Healthy Food,” educates readers on how growing organic, nutrient-dense ancient grains can support individual health, rural communities, and environmental resilience.

Kathleen Dent was born at a family owned ski area in southeastern Idaho. She grew up tromping through the woods, following critters, and just generally being curious. She has always lived in the Intermountain West, including the Snake River Valley of Idaho, the high desert of Utah and now in Missoula, Montana. She loves to learn about this beautiful part of the world and encourage the little people in her life to be curious and explore. Kathleen is a world traveler. She especially enjoys visiting her kids and granddaughter! She and husband Larry cherish their time with family and friends and time in the beautiful Montana landscape.

Alli DePuy spent many days during her childhood skittering and scattering, baking mud pies, and building forts in the forests. When she was not outside, Alli could be found painting images of her experiences in nature. Raised in the Inland Northwest, Alli grew up with a love of the outdoors and art. Moving to Missoula to attend the University of Montana and receiving a degree in art and education was the perfect fit. Today, Alli still lives in Missoula with her husband, children, and two dogs. On most afternoons you can find her hiking in the hills, skiing in the mountains, or cooling off on a hot summer’s day in the neighborhood swimming hole. Her sketchbook and paints are always close at hand.

Mike Sawaya earned his BSc in Wildlife Biology from the University of Montana in 1997 and received his PhD in Fish and Wildlife Management from Montana State University in 2012. Mike has worked on grizzly and black bears in Glacier and Banff National Parks, cougars in Yellowstone National Park, black bears in eastern North America, and wolverines in western North America. Mike is active in professional wildlife organizations and enjoys mentoring graduate stduents. Through his research, Mike seeks to understand how wildlife populations respond to environmental changes and to apply that information for more effective conservation and management. When Mike is not investigating bear bathtubs, tracking cougars or wrangling carnivore hair, he enjoys camping, hiking, gardening, and adventuring with his wife and two sons.

About the Book
Sweetgrass Books, Inspired Classroom, and Sinopah Wildlife Research Associates are delighted to announce the release of Bear in the Bathtub—a collaborative effort that combines the work of teachers, students, scientists, and conservationists to deliver a book that will ignite curiosity about bear behavior and then teach children the biological reasons behind that behavior using text that is interesting, approachable, and based on published research and a current scientific study in Yellowstone National Park. “This book is really special because it was a collective project meant to spark creativity and instill knowledge. We are excited to share it with young readers everywhere and hope they will be inspired to get outside, explore, use their imaginations, and discover what is happening in the wilder corners of their world,” say Inspired Classroom Co-Owners Kathleen Dent and Alli DePuy.

Bettie Denny
Bettie Denny is a native New Yorker who fell in love with the Northwest, where her daughters attended college. After a career in television community affairs, she's pursuing her lifelong dream of writing novels in her adopted home of Portland, Oregon.

Lise McClendon
As a longtime Montana author Lise McClendon has lived in and written about many places in the state. She has written thrillers as Rory Tate and dark humor as Thalia Filbert. Under her own name she writes the Bennett Sisters mystery series featuring five sisters who are all attorneys. She lives in the wilds of Montana along the Madison River near Yellowstone National Park.

Megan McNamer
Megan's first novel, Children and Lunatics (Black Lawrence Press, 2016), won the Big Moose Prize. Her second novel, Home Everywhere, was published by Black Lawrence Press in November 2018. Her essays have appeared in Salon, Sports Illustrated, The Sun, Tropic Magazine (of The Miami Herald), Islands Magazine and a number of anthologies, and she has won finalist and semi-finalist awards from New Millennium, Glimmer Train, Writers@Work, the University of New Orleans Writing Contest for Study Abroad, the Travelers' Tales Best Travel Writing Solas Awards for 2016, and Carve Magazine's Raymond Carver Short Story Contest for 2016. Megan grew up in northern Montana and studied music at the University of Montana. She has an MA in Ethnomusicology from the University of Washington studies and performs Balinese music as a member of the Missoula, Montana community gamelan, Manik Harum.  

How can a rural setting can shape your crime fiction?

Lise McClendon
As a longtime Montana author Lise McClendon has lived in and written about many places in the state. She has written thrillers as Rory Tate and dark humor as Thalia Filbert. Under her own name she writes the Bennett Sisters mystery series featuring five sisters who are all attorneys. She lives in the wilds of Montana along the Madison River near Yellowstone National Park.

Allen Morris Jones
Allen Morris Jones is author of the acclaimed novels "Last Year’s River," which was chosen as as a Barnes & Noble Discover pick, and "A Bloom of Bones," which was an honor book for the Montana Book Award. He has appeared on “PBS NewsHour” as a guest essayist, and seen rave reviews of his work appear on the Today Show and in the LA Times, People magazine, Publisher’s Weekly, Booklist, and many others. He is the former editor of Big Sky Journal, a former acquisitions editor for the Lyons Press, and Publisher of his own small press, Bangtail Press. In 2018, he published his first children's book, "Montana for Kids: The Story of Our State." He lives in Bozeman, Montana with his wife and young son. 

Within a 1-mile radius of downtown Missoula these local writers working in poetry and prose are also spending their days near mainstreet. They work for a distillery. A bookstore. A software company. A radio station. They run their own business. They work for each other. They pass each other on the street. During the book festival they will all be in one place at the same time to share their latest work and celebrate what it means to be part of the Missoula writing community. 

• Sarah Aronson
• Jolene Brink
• Chris La Tray
• Jenny Montgomery
• Karin Schalm
• Phil Schaefer