For starters, this is not your traditional literary anthology. In this collection, writers and poets take on illness and trauma and the ways in which we respond to them: cancer, stroke, juvenile diabetes, PTSD, anorexia, sexual abuse, accidental death.
Missoula poet John Holbrook is among the contributors.
"This anthology has the potential to be a powerful force to help sufferers and loved ones reconnect with their humanity within themselves and with others."
The volume is intended for sharing with the general public, but also for reading, writing and support groups.
"The Melancholy Fate of Capt. Lewis" by Michael Pritchett, Unbridled Books, 416 pages.
Could there be another word left to write about Meriwether Lewis, William Clark or their Corps of Discovery?
I'll leave that for you to answer.
Novelist Michael Pritchett, for one, believes there is - in fact - much left to be explored about the death of Lewis, the cross-continent expedition's long-suffering co-leader.
He chooses fiction as the vehicle, telling the captain's story through the eyes of Bill Lewis, a modern-day high school history teacher who himself suffers from
chemical depression.
The teacher Lewis is writing a book and trying to solve the mystery of Lewis' suicide. In doing so, the contemporary hero becomes lost in the voice of Meriwether Lewis.
This is Pritchett's first novel, following publication of his collection of stories, "The Venus Tree." He is the winner of the 2000 Dana Award for a novel-in-progress, and a fiction writing teacher at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.
"Night Driving" by Dick Dorworth, First Ascent Press, Livingston, 256 pages.
Dick Dorworth is a skier and a mountain climber. And a writer.
Thus "Night Driving," the travelogue/reminiscence/collection of essays on his journey through life and around the world.
Thus his philosophizing about everything from ski racing to rock climbing to the war in Vietnam. Thus his need to bear witness to the drugs, drink and "crazy responses to a crazed world" of his "growing-up years."
Dorworth splits his time these days between Bozeman and Ketchum, Idaho, where he is a reporter and columnist for the Idaho Mountain Express.
Reach editor Sherry Devlin at (406) 523-5250 or by e-mail at sdevlin@missoulian.com.
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