
A Singular Notion
by Renee Carrier
$16.95 196 pages
ISBN 1-932636-27-7
Beneath an old school bell in front of the author's rural Wyoming home, hangs the sign, "LISTEN." In this multi-hued work, Renée Carrier invites us to listen with her as she "seeks balances" while facing the reality of her mother dying. "As a species," she writes, "we seem to require contexts lest we become lost in life's twists and turns." She finds these contexts in literature, art, and science; in the wisdom of Christ, Rumi, and others; in weather proverbs and the down-home homilies of neighbors; in the flight of an eagle, the strum of a guitar, the planting of garlic after the full moon. While remaining well grounded in the land, she invites us to immerse ourselves in the interconnectedness of our world and of life itself, learning "as much from woods and stones as from books." In exquisite prose, Renee plumbs the depths and music of mind and spirit. As we read these essays, we too begin to listen, "anticipating rhythms" not of an imposed, artificial structure, but of a fullness that transcends known paths and unfolds into an open field of expectancy. These essays express beauty and grace, joy and benediction, and above all, power and wholeness. ~ Gaydell Collier, co-editor, Leaning Into the Wind, Woven on the Wind, and Crazy Woman Creek. Houghton Mifflin Publishing.
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Contact Bearlodge Writers:
President………… Maureen Blake
Webmaster……… Connie
Information……… Bearlodge Info
Bearlodge Writers
P.O. Box 204
Sundance, Wyoming 82729-0204
Backpocket Books
364 Farral Road
Sundance, Wyoming 82729-9520
307-283-2665
gcollier@rangeweb.net
OR
Many Kites Press
3907 Minnekahta Drive
Rapid City, South Dakota
1-800-486-8940
In
the Shadow of the Bear Lodge: Writings from the Black
Hills. An Anthology by Bearlodge Writers.
www.bearlodgewriters.com Rapid City, SD. Many Kites Press,
2006. ISBN 0-9729002-8-7. 200 pp. $15 plus shipping and
handling.
Now Bearlodge Writers has published its first anthology. Inside
the stunning cover illustration of buffalo painted by
renowned watercolorist Sara Rogers is a rich and full-bodied
collection of writing.
Contained in this volume are reincarnations of historical personages as well as entities who inhabit other worlds. Characters in this prose may bid sad farewells to grandmothers or puzzled hellos to oriental mystics. They find stories in their socks as well as in The Satisfy Café. Stained glass windows and river rapids sing to them, and they find Rome's Coliseum in a tipi ring, hear history in "the remembering wind."
Experienced, these writers gnaw every bit of flavor from the most gristly details of their lives, and can still laugh and solve the problems of the world while rolling hay into long, tight windrows. "Hang on, hang on," they say in a dozen ways, because "lonely is a state of mind." Each page offers a new treasure, a unique viewpoint, a glimpse of what we might say about lives that might look ordinary to others. With "a firm hand and a no-nonsense look," they give us reasons to go on, to "sing on the waters" as we float through our lives.
These writers are, in fact, you
and me, all of us: ranchers and artists,
teachers, lawyers, professors of English, musicians and
librarians, nurses and extension educators, a UPS driver,
college students, corporate and private business persons- and
they all encourage and support each other in their efforts to
understand and capture what is most important in their
lives. These ordinary men and women, in creating this writing
collection, demonstrate in one more way their awareness of the
exquisite fragility of this world. They understand deeply that
they live and work "in the shadow of the Bearlodge."
Linda M. Hasselstrom
Publisher
Between Grass and Sky