The Write Question

Heather Barbieri's new novel, The Lacemakers of Glenmara

2009-11-13T09:04:00.000-08:00

Heather Barbieri's second novel, The Lacemakers of Glenmara, is set in a small town in West Ireland "where a heartbroken American tourist, Kate Robinson, finds her one-night stay extended with the help of some motherly role models." (Publishers Weekly)

Click here to find out more about Barbieri and her books, and listen to The Write Question online.

The Write Question airs every Thursday evening at 7:30 on Montana Public Radio.

Kevin Canty: Where The Money Went

2009-11-04T19:10:00.000-08:00

This week, The Write Question expands to a 30-minute program with a completely new format. Kevin Canty is our guest for the debut program. He'll talk about his process of writing short stories and tell us how to know when a short story wants to become a novel. And he'll read from stories in his latest collection: Where The Money Went

The new program format includes a short discussion about books written by regional authors. Producer Chérie Newman and Montana Public Radio's own Literary Dude, Zed, will discuss two recently published books.

Listen Thursday, November 5 at 7:30 p.m. or click here to listen online.

Stephenie Ambrose Tubbs: Why Sacajewea Deserves the Day Off and other Lessons from the Lewis and Clark Trail

2009-10-26T16:47:00.000-07:00

This week on The Write Question, Stephenie Ambrose Tubbs talks about her book Why Sacagawea Deserves the Day Off and other Lessons from the Lewis and Clark Trail. She also reads from the title essay.

Listen to the program on Montana Public Radio this Thursday evening, October 29, at 8:30. Or click here to listen online.

Mark T. Sullivan

2009-10-16T13:59:00.000-07:00

This week on The Write Question, Mark T. Sullivan talks about his latest thriller: Triple Cross.

Triple Cross takes place at the Jefferson Club, an exclusive resort for the super-rich in the mountains of Southwest Montana. On New Year's Eve, a militant group devoted to fighting corporate greed breaks through the club's high-tech security system and threatens to start executing hostages. There's mystery, action, drama, and, of course, romance. And right smack in the middle of it all, a set of headstrong teenage triplets.

Tune in Sunday morning at (approximately) 11:10 or next Thursday at 8:30 to hear Mark T. Sullivan on The Write Question.

Or, click here to listen online.

Craig Johnson, a "cowboy from Wyoming," goes to the National Book Festival in Washington, D.C.

2009-10-13T10:24:00.001-07:00

There was an important moment when the guy standing next to me at the Washington Post for the official photo for the National Book Festival in DC turned and said, “Hey Craig, how you doin’?” I thought he looked familiar as he told me about selling books out of the trunk of his car, but it was only as he was turning away that I got a look at his nametag and read John Grisham.

Another was when I saw an elderly gentleman at the adjacent table looking for a place to sit at the breakfast reception. I stood and took my chair over, placing it beside him. “There you go.” By that time I’d gotten pretty cagey about the whole nametag thing and caught a glimpse of his, Ben Bradley--the famed editor who had seen that two cub reporters by the names of Woodward and Bernstein got a crack at a little know story back in the seventies called Watergate.

I was starting to feel a little more than out of my depth.

The night before, Judy and I had attended the opening reception at the Library of Congress Reading Room. If you haven’t been there, you should go. I think it’s one of the most beautiful rooms I’ve ever been in and if you go during business hours and show them some ID they’ll give you a card so that you can request any of thirty-two million books.

I was tempted to request one of mine but it was, after all, beyond business hours.

The next day I got to speak in a tent that held about seven hundred people and set the pace by telling them about getting pulled over by HP Jim Thomas on the other side of the mountains. They started laughing, and I’ve got to admit that they laughed all the way through my presentation. I like to think they were laughing with me. The speech is up on the Library of Congress website, if you should choose to watch. http://www.loc.gov/bookfest/2009/authors/Johnson-Craig.html

Later, I got to chat with Mike Enzi and assist Wyoming State Librarian Lesley Boughton by placing stickers of Steamboat (the horse on our license plate) on the maps the hoards of kids brought to our table. Lesley was tough and made them guess where the home state was, “There are only two square states…”

Now with a guest list that included the afore mentioned John Grisham, Ken Burns, Lee Child, Michael Connelly, Margaret Coel, John Irving, Sue Monk Kidd, Walter Mosely, James Patterson, and Lisa Scottoline just to name a few, you might be wondering how in the heck the cowboy from Ucross got invited? I mean, I had a good year but not that good.

Well, the secret lies in a nice fellow by the name of John Y. Cole, the Director of the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress who has a wife who is the librarian at the little museum down the road—the Smithsonian.

Well, guess which square state she’s from.

All the best,

Craig

* * * * *

Craig Johnson is the author of the Walt Longmire series. His fifth book, The Dark Horse, was published in June of 2009. Visit Craig Johnson's website.

Sheryl Noethe

2009-10-09T15:48:00.000-07:00

This week on The Write Question, Sheryl Noethe, poet and founder of the Missoula Writing Collaborative, talks about the impact of "becoming an author" on her life. She also reads from her latest collection of poetry, As Is.

Click here to listen to Sheryl Noethe on The Write Question.

The Financial Lives of the Poets

2009-10-05T12:51:00.000-07:00

"A laid-off newspaper reporter turns to dealing pot in Jess Walter's new novel."

Check out Jenny Shank's review of The Financial Lives of the Poets, at NewWest.net.

Jamie Ford: Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet

2009-10-03T13:04:00.000-07:00

Jamie Ford, author of Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, talks about his novel on The Write Question.

Listen to The Write Question Sunday morning during the eleven o'clock hour or Thursday evening at 8:30 on Montana Public Radio.

Or, click here to listen online.

Discovering Samuel Ligon

2009-09-30T10:24:00.000-07:00

Say you had 450 thousand dollars of tax-free cash and the opportunity to start a new life. What would you do next? That’s the question Robert Elgin, the central character in Samuel Ligon’s novel Safe in Heaven Dead, forgot to ask himself. He put all his efforts into absconding with a secret slush fund and escaping from his troubled marriage without considering what he’d do afterward.

With Safe in Heaven Dead, Ligon moves a fantasy of financial independence and freedom from the realm of daydream into practical reality, a reality in which cash is suspect.

Think about this: Where do you stay if you can’t use your real I.D. or your credit cards? And where do you stash all that cash? And, without any obligations or responsibilities whatsoever, what do you do with 168 hours every week?

Elgin checks into a sleazy motel and watches TV. He carries the money around with him in a plastic trash bag. He finds a high-class escort service that (of course) accepts cash. He develops a relationship with Carla, a beautiful doctoral student — a relationship that eventually kills him, during the first sentence of page one: “Robert Elgin died on the street, knocked down pursuing a woman he thought he could not live without.”

Safe in Heaven Dead is Ligon’s debut novel, published by HarperCollins in 2003. But his writing is mature and innovative. The story moves in flexible, crystal clear circles. Ligon presents dialogue in a notably fresh form. The plot is supported by complex details written simply. And the narrative ripples with moral dilemmas sans advocacy.

Publisher’s Weekly said it best: "This debut novel instantly seizes and holds the imagination. Few readers will remain unconvinced by the agonizing questions that drive this story, and the tragedy with which the book begins and ends."

Autumn House Press recently published a collection of Ligon’s short stories: Drift and Swerve. They are vivid and intense.

Find out more about Samuel Ligon at his website: SamuelLigon.net

This Week on The Write Question

2009-09-25T10:45:00.000-07:00

This week The Write Question features April Christofferson, author of seven novels. Her latest, Alpha Female, is an eco-thriller set in Yellowstone National Park.

Click on the link below to hear April Christofferson:
The Write Question on Montana Public Radio

Lee Kierig on Infinite Love

2009-09-23T08:43:00.000-07:00

Part philosophical treatise, part spiritual teaching, part political manifesto, Where Is Infinite Love? Public Welfare Human Responsibility and Sustainability of Earth declares that it is time to examine our beliefs and our behaviors and to begin acting from LOVE, the real kind.

Where Is Infinite Love, written by Lee Kierig, an architect and writer in Hamilton, Montana, is not light reading. But it's message is important and timely. Chérie Newman asked Kierig a few questions about the book's key points. Here are his responses:

What prompted you to write "Where Is Infinite Love? Public Welfare Human Responsibility and Sustainability of Earth" ? A specific event?
Two events, really...separated by twenty-five years...caused the writing of this book. At Montana State University, in 1983, as part of the requirements for obtaining my degree in Architecture, I wrote/produced a thesis that aimed to discover "The Spirit of the Art of Architecture." With mentors and advisors such as; the Dean of the School of Art and Architecture; the Director of the School of Architecture; the Director of the School of Philosophy and a professor of Religious Studies, the experience proved to be significantly profound in my discovery of "duality," "fourness" - the balancing of opposites - and underlying universal themes motivating Humanity throughout the entire concourse of all Human history. These themes, clearly evident but not readily apparent or recognized, have arisen among us and clearly serve to motivate us against ourselves on many levels...some of them on a significant and destructive level. The discovery of universal concepts...ideas we all share, and in particular the concept of LOVE, had a profound affect upon my inner self that stays with me to this day and represents the underlying premise in the book. The realization that we ALL believe in the same LOVE, is not holistically or even commonly known among us. In fact, the word "love" conjures up a gambit of surface views, stigmas and stereotypical perceptions among us that largely divides us...even though we are all like-hearted in its presence. Its relation to forming cultural spirit - ethos - manifests itself on the surface of who we are, as our largely inherited belief systems that we express into the world. These expressions, oftentimes violently hurled into world society, encompass the overall manner of how we act and is virtually dominated by centric behavior having its basis in a world view of "Being" versus "Becoming." In other words. we largely tend to view ourselves, by each and by group, as somehow separate form the "made" world with all things and manner of things "presented" - a static engagement. Contrastingly, by virtue of the continual arising, we largely deny or disregard the fact that all things evolve and continually become, with our engagement as actually intertwined and dynamic. Things don't actually "appear" as if "made," but rather, "arise" as "manifested" from the eternal combining of possibilities and representing, then, ongoing creation. We eternally seek balance with the never-ending stream of choice-making that is largely made up of resolving opposites. Tension and resolution give rise to feelings of peace, tranquility and accomplishment - the ART of making - our essential nature and akin to the ALL LOVE.

What is the core premise of the book?
The manner of "human acting" affects all outcomes of human endeavor. I observe that the "human act" is a product of primal archetype schema cast upon us at the advent of all sentient life...from which we evolved. The advent of reflective consciousness engraved into all future comings of humans, that the world is..."ME". Moreover, the "human act" is infected with a cooked-up centric view that "God" favors "us and not them" - that "God" is wrathful, vindictive and mean...IF you don't do what [we say] he wants. Virtually no one even contemplates the meaning behind the notion of a "God" that "wants" something as opposed to a "God" that merely "presents" optimum choices...bringing with it, then, the need to contemplate a "God" that expresses "purpose-with-consequences." Where, we might ask, is the Infinite Love in that? Get the idea? The universal premise of all emblematic movements is "Love"...the core theme in my 'thesis' is, What IS Infinite Love? and, moreover, WHERE is it? These fundamental manners of the "human act" - expressed sometimes violently into the world - have never been questioned for any merit in the world value arena and only give rise to aggression, prejudice and power-hunting - [seen as "free rights"] and, quite plainly, only serve to set us against ourselves...still, after all the eons of our coming forward, is this the hallmark achievement of humankind?

NO...it can't be. The time has come upon us, now, to acknowledge, recognize, reckon and re-create. Even now, poised on the precipice of collapse...there is clearly some distance way to go.

Do we have to totally re-invent ourselves?
All of us? Yes, at some level we are ALL afflicted. The core theme to achieve True Sustainability, does require a fundamental reckoning of the human act toward a higher sense of purpose to nurture, keep and steward our human family and our sweet all-giving limited Earth. ALL survivability depends on what we do now. There is no real time for debate as too many live in denial of the present and imminent findings of facts that degrade the Natural Law Domain of Public Trusts which is; to protect the life, health, safety and welfare of the public AND to protect all the limited offerings of Earth AND the fundamental right of all sentient beings to their manner of life...too many live under the hammer of oppression, mixing lard with sand for "our only meal today" and hoping the ethnic cleaners, moral dogma brigades and reckless despots don't come around today. Why are women blamed for the "fall" of mankind? Why aren't we ALL living a responsible and creative life full of artfully meaningful experience? Too many of us look for "success" in a lottery ticket and for bliss in a brown bottle. Might we arise to become better students of who we are, what we've not become and relish becoming an aspired humanity based on principals of LOVE?

It is plainly evident that how we act is responsible for all the calamity arising from centric pursuits and driving us toward catastrophe and collapse. An Earth-cost economy and Vital Planning for balance, while turning toward the essential nature of ALL of us to be creative, is how we can arise for the Noble Purpose to UNIFY for Truth, altruism, respect, reverence, responsible liberty for ALL citizens and sentient beings of Earth, ethics, philanthropy and yes, Infinite Love...these, evidently, are some things we seem to know very little about.

Lee Kierig

Click here to visit Lee Kierig's website

Kierig's Call To Action

For ALL citizens of EARTH, I come, now, asking for UNITY among us for the Noble Cause to finally reckon the fundamental manners of the human act and apply our reverent call upon the World Table. Without a vital re-creation of our way-too-old-now motivating philosophies, can we ever hope to achieve a True Sustainability of Humanity and Earth...Responsible Liberty for ALL citizens of Earth...Responsible respect for ALL sentient beings...for ALL future generations?

I have initiated a campaign for UNITY among us to make this "reverent call" upon the World Table. Some courage is to be mustered in realizing that who we are is directly responsible for the malady of our manner that yields to calamity, catastrophe and collapse, even as we see that world population is now beyond sustainable limits...that we are consuming world resources at a 20% annual deficit...that by 2080, we'll need TWO Earths to support us. So, for that, I ask you to become part of this campaign - this movement - this reverent call.
Please come forward and endorse this Call for a Vital Reckoning...this Call for Truth...this Call for Peace...this Call for Vital Planning for Balance and True Sustainability...and, yes, this Call for Re-creation through principals of Infinite Love. We ALL must stand now and ask the World to STOP.
We can FIXXIT NOW!

http://www.ThePetitionSite.com/1/fixxit-now

Greg Pape, Montana's second Poet Laureate

2009-09-19T09:20:00.000-07:00

This week The Write Question features poet and teacher Greg Pape. During his term as Montana's second Poet Laureate, Pape came up with some inspiring and innovative ways to become an advocate for poetry. Use the link below to hear all about them and listen to Pape reading two of his poems on The Write Question:
http://www.mtpr.net/program_info/2009-09-20-405

Why Some Men Are The Way They Are: Noticing One Theme In Three Short Story Collections

2009-09-16T21:14:00.000-07:00

Where The Money Went, by Kevin Canty
Both Ways Is The Only Way I Want It, by Maile Meloy
Nine Ten Again, by Phil Condon

Here's a link to a review of three short story collections written by Chérie Newman and just published in High Country News:
http://www.hcn.org/issues/41.16/why-some-men-are-the-way-they-are

All Our Stories Are Here: Critical Perspectives On Montana Literature

2009-09-10T11:26:00.000-07:00

University of Montana Professor Brady Harrison says there's a lot more to say about Montana literature. But he's made a good start with All Our Stories Are Here: Critical Perspectives On Montana Literature.

Listen to Harrison talk about Montana Literature and the book on The Write Question

Phil Condon: Nine Ten Again

2009-08-24T11:01:00.000-07:00

Phil Condon is this week's guest on The Write Question. Condon's new book is a collection of stories: Nine Ten Again.

Click on the link below to listen to the program.
The Write Question on Montana Public Radio

Montana Place Names from Alzada to Zortman

2009-08-21T22:55:00.000-07:00

Ellen Baumler is this week's guest on The Write Question. Baumler co-authored Montana Place Names from Alzada to Zortman with Brian Shovers, Charlene Porsild, Rich Aarstad and Ellie Arguimbau. The book was published by the Montana Historical Society.

Click on the link below to listen to the program.
The Write Question on Montana Public Radio

Michael Fitzgerald: Radiant Days

2009-08-14T09:13:00.000-07:00

This week on The Write Question, Michael Fitzgerald talks about the value of anti-heroes in literature in general, and in his novel, Radiant Days, in particular.

Click here to listen to Michael Fitzgerald on The Write Question

Maile Meloy: Both Ways Is The Only Way I Want It

2009-07-21T22:20:00.000-07:00

This week on The Write Question, Maile Meloy talks about the stories in her new collection, Both Ways Is The Only Way I Want It. She also reads a few pages of "O Tannenbaum."

Click here to listen to Maile Meloy on The Write Question

Victor Charlo

2009-07-08T19:35:00.000-07:00

Victor Charlo, poet and great-great grandson of Chief Victor Charlo of the Bitterroot Salish, talks about Indian ways, new and old, this week on The Write Question. He also reads some of the poems in his new collection, Put Seý.

Click here to listen to Victor Charlo on The Write Question

Kevin Goodan, poet and professor

2009-06-24T20:03:00.000-07:00

If you enjoy smart, but accessible poetry, check out Kevin Goodan's new collection, Winter Tenor. And hear him read a few of his poems and talk about writing this week on The Write Question.

New collections by Western Montana Native American poets:

Put Seý, by Victor Charlo
Suddenly Out Of A Long Sleep, by Lowell Jaeger

Pulitzer Prize Nominee Craig Lesley

2009-06-18T07:20:00.000-07:00

Craig Lesley, an award-winning author from Portland Oregon, was in Missoula last February. I enjoyed his books and our discussion so much, that I'm repeating this program -- in honor of Father's Day.

Click here to find out why and listen to The Write Question.

The Write Question is supported in part by Humanities Montana, enriching intellectual, civic, and cultural life for all Montanans.

What's her name?

2009-06-12T12:12:00.000-07:00

Ever wonder how to pronounce the name of the only woman who traveled with the Corps of Discovery? Well, now's your chance to find out. Stephenie Ambrose Tubbs, Lewis and Clark scholar, is our guest this week on The Write Question.

Her book of essays on Lewis and Clark, Why Sacagawea Deserves the Day Off and other Lessons from the Lewis and Clark Trail, was published by the University of Nebraska Press in the Fall of 2008.

Click here to find out more and listen to the program.

Montana Historian Gary Glynn

2009-06-05T07:03:00.000-07:00

This week, Missoula historian Gary Glynn is our guest on The Write Question. He'll talk about writing the text for a new Turner Publications book of Montana photography: Historic Photos of Montana.

Click here to find out more about Glynn and the book, and listen to the program.

Yellowstone Autumn: A Season of Discovery in a Wondrous Land

2009-05-19T15:44:00.000-07:00

Although he is not a western writer, W.D. Wetherell's new book, Yellowstone Autumn: A Season of Discovery in a Wondrous Land, is well worth a western reader's time. Wetherell's view of the park is delivered with the clarity and insight often available only to those we call "outsiders."

Click here to read Chérie Newman's review of Yellowstone Autumn, written for High Country News.

New Video from Joseph Marshall III

2009-04-14T20:22:00.000-07:00

Bestselling Native American writer Joseph M. Marshall III recently posted a beautiful video on YouTube.com, inspired by his book Keep Going: The Art of Perseverance.

Click here to watch.

Marshall was a guest on The Write Question last fall.