Home Land : Ranching and a West That Works

If you care about the West, you must care about the lands of the West—lands that are disappearing rapidly, along with the people and cultures that go along with them. In this collection of 22 essays, the editors have brought together some of the best—and most insightful—writing on ranching in the West. These writers explore the changing landscape of the West and how, in an age of huge, corporate-owned ranches, the small rancher can survive. This book brings together the best writers in the West today—including poets, ranchers, and conservationists—in a one-of-a-kind, unique look at the West. Includes essays by: Aaron Abeyta, Julene Bair, Rick Bass, Bob Budd, Joan Chevalier, James Galvin, Drum Hadley, Linda Hussa, Page Lambert, Wallace McRae, Sharon Salisbury O’Toole, Diane Josephy Peavey, Nathan Sayre, Mark Spragg, Kim Stafford, Paul F. Starrs, Courtney White, Paul Zarzyski

Winner of the Colorado Book Award.

Laura Pritchett is author of a novel, Sky Bridge, and a collection of short stories, Hell’s Bottom, Colorado, which won the Milkweed National Fiction Prize and the PEN USA Award for Fiction. Her work has also appeared in numerous magazines, including The Sun, Orion, High Country News, 5280, and Pulse of the River: Colorado Writers Speak for the Endangered Cache la Poudre (which she co-edited). She holds a B.A. and an M.A. from Colorado State University and a Ph.D. in literature from Purdue University. Laura lives in northern Colorado near the small cattle ranch where she was raised, and often writes about ranchland preservation.

Richard L. Knight is interested in the ecological effects associated with the conversion of the Old West to the Next West. A professor of wildlife conservation at Colorado State University, he received his graduate degrees from the University of Washington and the University of Wisconsin. While at Wisconsin he was an Aldo Leopold Fellow and conducted his research at Aldo Leopold’s farm, living in “The Shack.” Presently he sits on a number of boards, including the Colorado Cattlemen’s Agricultural Land Trust, the Quivira Coalition, the Science Board of the Malpai Borderlands Project, and The Nature Conservancy’s Colorado Council. Richard was selected by the Ecological Society of America for the first cohort of Aldo Leopold Leadership Fellows, who focus on leadership in the scientific community, communicating with the media, and interacting with the business and corporate sectors. With his wife, Heather, he works with his neighbors in Livermore Valley on stewardship and community based activities.

Jeff Lee is director of the Rocky Mountain Land Library, a nonprofit educational organization whose mission is to encourage a greater awareness of the land. For the past twenty years, he has also been a bookseller at Denver’s legendary Tattered Cover Book Store.