Regular Writers Group Members: Mary B. Kurtz
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Mary B. Kurtz
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Cesare Rosati
Sandra Sherrod
William D. Skees
Bill Stocks
Mary and her husband live on a ranch in the Elk River Valley where they've raised cattle, elk, and quarter horses. In her memoir, At Home in the Elk River Valley: Reflections on Family, Place, and the West, she celebrates family, place, and Western rural living. Out of the terrain of mid-life, Mary pauses to look back on the life she found in the landscape of the Elk River Valley. At times close-up, at times from a more objective distance, she searches for meaning and understanding of the past. Subtle change, often unannounced, occurred over the years: children stepped onto a school bus; neighboring land changed hands; the river eroded its banks as it flooded; the sandhill cranes, once endangered, returned to nest; and pressure to subdivide turned into pressure to conserve. The reflections become an exercise in both personal and historical preservation: a route toward understanding generational connections to her family, community, and the valley she calls home; a path to understanding the importance of one's history, both personal and cultural; a way of understanding the necessity of valuing, preserving, and protecting the open landscapes for future generations.
She has contributed to Farm and Ranch Living, The Trail and Rider Magazine, Country Woman and Cats and Kittens. She co-authored and self-published Friends for Life: The Legacy of a 1950s Neighborhood. As co-editor of the locally bestselling cookbook, Steamboat Entertains, Mary has experience with editing, publishing, and marketing a book for a non-profit organization. She has self-published two additional cookbooks, The Bean Sprout: A Nutritional Guide and Cookbook for Children and My Grandmother's Kitchen: Recipes and Remembrances of Mabel Ide Mortensen.
Readers are invited to join Mary on her blog where she writes regularly about her life in the Elk River Valley. Her "Ranch Journal" is located at: marybkurtz.blogspot.com