Breakfast In Montana
Montana has produced an extraordinary number of notable books and stories, many of which have been instrumental in defining the American West. A River Runs Through It, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, Fools Crow, The Big Sky, Perma Red, and The Last Best Place, all Montana books. For this podcast, Montana writers Russell Rowland (In Open Spaces, Fifty-Six Counties: A Montana Journey) and Aaron Parrett (Montana Then and Now and Literary Butte) will discuss two books per episode, in an effort to explore what it is about Montana that produces so much fabulous literature.
Episodes
September 9, 2023 • 58 mins
For the final episode of Breakfast in Montana, Russell Rowland and Charles Finn talk to poet Mary Jane Nealon about her remarkable memoir, Beautiful Unbroken, which was the recipient of the Bakeless Prize for Non-fiction, which is awarded by the Breadloaf Foundation. Nealon's account of working with AIDS patients in New York City just after the epidemic broke out is heartbreaking but also filled with a surprising amount of hope abo...
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July 20, 2023 • 49 mins
Russell Rowland had the opportunity to do an interview with James Lee Burke for Distinctly Montana Magazine about the work of A.B. Guthrie. Both Russell and James are huge Guthrie fans, and Burke got to know him after he moved to Missoula in the '60s. So Burke has some wonderful stories about Guthrie, but also some terrific insights into the importance of his work. Burke also talks a great deal about his own work.
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June 8, 2023 • 51 mins
We're happy to introduce a new co-host in this episode, as Montana Book Award winner Charles Finn (On a Benediction of Wind) joins Russell Rowland in a conversation with their old friend Shann Ray. Shann has published several books in a wide variety of genres, including American Copper and his excellent short story debut, American Masculine. As you can probably guess from these titles, Shann frequently writes about various aspects ...
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March 10, 2023 • 51 mins
On a Benediction of Wind was just named the winner of the Montana Book Award days before we recorded this episode, so we're thrilled to feature the beautiful poetry of Charles Finn, and talk to him and Barbara Michelman about how they came to create this fabulous collaboration of poetry and black and white photography.
Barbara suggested the second book, and it was a perfect choice, as Evelyn Cameron has become renowned for her ea...
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October 11, 2022 • 43 mins
Elise Atchison's debut novel, Crazy Mountain, was the recipient of the Eludia Award, an award given to first-time women novelists over forty. She worked for over ten years on this book, which features a completely different point of view for each chapter. The novel takes place in a fictional region where the typical struggle is playing out between people who have lived in the region want to preserve what they have while outsiders m...
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August 22, 2022 • 66 mins
This episode pairs one of the most esteemed Native American authors of our time with a writer who started writing because of his influence and guidance. Debra Magpie Earling took her very first writing class from James Welch at the University of Washington, and would later study with him again at Cornell. Earling's debut novel Perma Red made a huge impression on the literary community when it came out in 2002, but it has been out o...
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June 24, 2022 • 59 mins
For this episode, we interview the current poet laureate of Montana, Missoula poet Mark Gibbons. And Mark asked us to talk about an old friend of his, David Dale, who published three collections during his lifetime but never got much recognition.
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May 26, 2022 • 48 mins
For this episode, we were so honored to have a chance to sit down with our old friend, poet Greg Keeler. Greg taught at Montana State University for forty years, and toward the end of his career, he started writing a sonnet every day. He continues this practice to this day, but in 2018, Elk River Books put out a beautiful collection of 180 of these sonnets called The Bluebird Run. And in his very unique way, Greg asked us to make a...
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February 19, 2022 • 55 mins
For this episode, we had the pleasure of talking with our good friend Tom Harpole about his collection, Regarding Willingness. Tom wrote for national magazines for decades, but this collection consists of personal essays that Tom wrote through the years about his adventures in various parts of the world, including skydiving in Russia, and going along for a ride with one of the ice road truckers in Alaska. He also nearly cut off his...
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January 11, 2022 • 39 mins
This past year marked the twenty-fifth anniversary of the publication of Undaunted Courage, which has become known as the bible for the Lewis and Clark Expedition. This book, written by Stephen Ambrose, had the feel of a novel, and captured the interest of millions of readers just in time for the 200th anniversary of the Voyage of Discovery. Ambrose's book has also inspired many people to explore this expedition in their own unique...
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October 21, 2021 • 53 mins
Ryan Busse worked as a top executive in the gun industry for several decades. "I sold millions of guns," he says. But Busse became increasingly disillusioned with the NRA's influence on the industry he loved, to the point that he felt compelled to write about his experience. Gunfight is part memoir, part expose on how this industry has fallen under the influence of the NRA and the Republican party. Ryan's take on the Second Amendme...
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September 21, 2021 • 52 mins
Thomas Savage was a novelist who grew up in Beaverhead County, Montana, on a sheep ranch. He published a dozen novels but was sadly overlooked while he was alive, despite receiving resounding critical acclaim for his entire career. His work was rediscovered around the turn of the century, thanks in large part to the praises of Annie Proulx and Tom McGuane, and his best novel, The Power of the Dog, is about to appear on the big scre...
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July 3, 2021 • 48 mins
John Maclean, son of Montana icon Norman Maclean, has become a fine writer in his own right, and he recently published what he calls 'a chronicle' of his life with his father and his own relationship to Norman's enormously successful novella, A River Runs Through It. Home Waters is a terrific tale that explores the importance and complicated nature of relationships between fathers and sons, and about how he and his father both beco...
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May 19, 2021 • 47 mins
For our twenty-second episode, we had the great pleasure of sitting down for over an hour with Doug Peacock, who has been fighting to save the grizzly bear for decades now, and when you read his fabulous book, Grizzly Years, you get a deeper understanding of why he has such a passion for this cause. After Doug returned from his tour in Vietnam, during the worst years of the war, he escaped into the wilderness to try and find some h...
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February 25, 2021 • 54 mins
For this episode, we're breaking out of the box a little by exploring the world of literature from the perspective of a musician. Joey Running Crane is an accomplished recording artist from the Blackfeet Reservation. He has recorded with several bands, including the fabulously named Goddamit Boyhowdy, and Dirty Bird. His solo album, Dog Winter, was released in 2019. And part of the reason we chose to talk to Joey was because he is ...
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December 13, 2020 • 42 mins
For our nineteenth episode, we feature one of our most recent poet laureates, Tami Haaland and two of her poetry collections, When We Wake in the Night, and What Does Not Return. And we also talk about one of Tami's mentors, Madeline DeFrees, who taught at the University of Montana Creative Writing Department for about twelve years and was a highly regarded poet around the country. We discuss her collection Blue Dusk.
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November 1, 2020 • 50 mins
For this episode, Russell and Aaron interview Montana's current Poet Laureate, Melissa Kwasny, about her non-fiction book, Putting on the Dog, which is about the nature of clothes and where they come from. Melissa spent five years traveling all over the world, visiting places a mink farm in Denmark, to explore how people go about growing and preparing the materials we use to make our clothing.
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July 29, 2020 • 40 mins
For this episode of Breakfast in Montana, Aaron and Russell talk about two very powerful collections of stories, Black Cherries, published in 1931 by Grace Stone Coates, and The Ballet at the Moose Lodge, by Caroline Patterson.
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February 14, 2020 • 46 mins
For this episode, Aaron and Russell discuss one of the classic novels of Native American literature, The Surrounded, published in 1936 by D'Arcy McNickle, along with an amazing collection of contemporary poetry by Sean Hill, who lives in Helena and studied at Stanford, as well as the University of Houston.
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October 15, 2019 • 35 mins
For Episode Fifteen, Aaron Parrett and Russell Rowland have a fabulous conversation with John Taliaferro, biographer extraordinaire, about his new book, Grinnell, about George Bird Grinnell, the man who was called the Father of American Conservation at the time of his death. We also talk about a couple of Grinnell's own books, The Fighting Cheyennes, and Blackfoot Lodge Tales.
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