Trudi Carleton Peek

Trudi Carleton Peek is an artist by profession, having carried on a successful freelance illustration & graphic design business before being hired as a medical illustrator by U of WA’s Harborview Medical Center, in Seattle, WA. Along with being an illustrator of books, a watercolor painter, and the creator of intricate glass mosaics, she has always been a writer. As a native of Montana, she has published several essays and stories in Montana publications. She is a sustaining member of Women Who Write The West.

About her writing she says, “I write about Montana because I love its grand possibilities and its tough resourceful people. When I was a child, money was nonexistent, but life was rich; and that was a powerful lesson in itself. I like best writing about strong independent women confronting real situations, and coming out of them even stronger. I am a romantic at heart. I firmly believe that is takes love and commitment to live successfully in Montana’s powerful hinterlands. That love between men and women and kids is at the heart of my work. My parents’ love for camping and fishing greatly influenced me. My ear is always pointed to environmental issues because…because I care deeply for this earth of ours.”

Trudi was born into an educator’s family, and grew up in the wheat-farming part of Central Montana. The family later moved to mountainous Western Montana. She attended the University in Missoula, MT, and married an architect there, and had four children. Later, she married a wildlife biologist and lived in Yellowstone Park, Minnesota, and Idaho. Retired now, but still actively creating art and writing, she lives in Port Orchard, WA.