Mary clearman blew biography

Mary Clearman Blew (born 1939) is an American non fiction writer.
Blew was born on that cattle ranch near Lewistown in 1939, the great-granddaughter of homesteaders.
Biography.

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Northwest Schools of Literature: Commentary

13. Mary Clearman Blew, 1939–

Mary Clearman Blew grew up in Montana's eastern center, far from town on the farm her grandparents claimed as homestead. As children do in many small communities, she found among the few books on her library shelves the stories set nearby—in her case the books of Mildred Walker and Will James. She also heard the family stories. Blew lived in Montana for nearly fifty years, teaching and administering in the state's schools and colleges, before she moved to Lewiston, Idaho to teach writing and then to the University of Idaho to join its writing faculty.

In the classroom, Mary Clearman Blew may begin a lecture with a writing assignment. "Start writing and don't stop until you've filled the page," she might say. "Choose a location that has special significance to you and contemplate its history because when you think of explaining a place you love, its history can help." She characteristically may say, "Remember, the very things that draw us to a place sometimes feel as though they s

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An Ongoing Attempt to Understand this Place: An Interview with Mary Clearman Blew

Mary Clearman Blew’s first memoir, All But the Waltz: A Memoir of Five Generations in the Life of a Montana Family, was published by Viking in 1991, and she has written other notable memoirs of life in the West, including Balsamroot (2001) and This is Not the Ivy League (2011). These, combined with her short story collections Runaway (1990), Sister Coyote: Montana Stories (2000), and Lambing Out and Other Stories (2001), have earned Blew a lifetime Distinguished Achievement Award from the Western Literature Association.

But among Blew’s many books, only Jackalope Dreams (University of Nebraska Press, 2008) has been a novel. This September she has a second novel, Ruby Dreams of Janis Joplin, also out from Nebraska as part of its Flyover Fiction series. While much of Blew’s writing has focused on what we might call the “Old West”—looking back on family history in All But the Waltz, for instance—Ruby Dreams unfolds in a “New West” Montana that feels scrubbed of its fron

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From the Bookshelf: UM Author Mary Clearman Blew

By: Susan Cuff

From rustic beginnings on a small cattle ranch in central Montana to an esteemed western writer and professor emerita, Mary Clearman Blew personifies what a reviewer once said about the protagonist in her novel:

“ … exemplifying the maxim that 'If you don't like who you are … you can always be somebody else.’ ”

Blew wasn’t dissatisfied with “who” she was on the ranch. She just knew she wanted more in life than to be a country school teacher – her parents’ dream for her.

Blew was born on that cattle ranch near Lewistown in 1939, the great-granddaughter of homesteaders. Her rich family legacy figures prominently in her robust body of work. From “All But the Waltz” to the recent “Think of Horses,” ranch life looms large in her writing. You can take the girl off the ranch, but…you know the rest.

Blew was a voracious young reader, but not many books could be found on the ranch. She tried creating her own stories and he