On Wednesday, following our trip to Yosemite, I flew up to Missoula to attend the 12th annual Montana Festival of the Book, an event I founded in 2000, when I was director of the Montana Committee for the Humanities, now Humanities Montana. I could write reams about this event and other humanities matters in Montana, which would interest very few people, any of whom would have their own relevant and valid views. But the festival is an ongoing matter, among several of which I remain very proud from my years in Montana, and I have the greatest affection for the many people who joined with me in 1999 and 2000, and subsequently, and who have kept the festival vibrant and vital all these years. Foremost among these is Kim Anderson, who came to "coordinate" the festival in 2000. I had the good luck and good sense to hire her then, and she has been a prime mover and planner of it since the beginning. I think nearly all of the greatest living writers of the American West have appeared at the festival in one year or another, many more than once...and many others...poets, writers of fiction and non-fiction, historians, political commentators, authors of cookbooks, trail guides, and always much, much more. The Festival is at
humanitiesmontana.org and associated Facebook and Flickr sites. In any case, it was wonderful to see and visit with so many old friends and associates, and some new ones. And my sincere thanks to Kim and Neil for their hospitality.
And see the postscript, Mayor John Engen's beautiful welcome from the opening night of the festival.
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| Bill Kittredge introduces |
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| Tom McGuane |
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Germaine White's session on the restoration of bull trout
in the Jocko River; published by the University of Nebraska
Press; Germaine was vice chair of my board in 1997 |
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| Poetry dispenser at the registration desk |
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My successor, Ken Egan, introduces the panel for the
"Coen Brothers' Cinematic West"; "careful, man, there's
a beverage here" |
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| Friday night--family night--at the Top Hat; only in Montana |
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Followed by the 3 hour poetry slam; just
about the most electrifying word-event I
have ever seen; 250 in attendance per
the management; mostly about performance,
but I keenly suspect that that was mostly
what Homer was about; for me, the most
electrifying reading was Debra Earling's 2003
reading of the original unpublished ending
of Perma Red; the next gala reader, Tim
Cahill, turned to me and said "I can't follow
that!" and we took a brief unscheduled
intermission to let everyone recompose and
reset; and then there was Chuck Palahniuk
a few years later; but I digress..."all
them memories come floodin' back" |
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Rick Bass; just for the record, I became convinced of the
importance of Montana writers on a late 90s visit to Paris
and a Left Bank bookstore table of Rick's books |
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Kiddie time at the festival, with Snow White, Grumpy, and
Corduroy the Bear; I am now much more attuned to kiddie
time... |
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Just for the record, again...the festival really began at a
lunch in Bozeman (or was it Big Sky?) in 1999 when I pitched
the idea to Jim and Lois Welch and Bill Bevis; it was
certainly of no moment to them; but when Jim Welch allowed
it might be a good idea and, yes, he would participate, it was
a done deal for me...here, Lois introduces... |
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| Mary Clearman Blew |
Festival of the Book 2011
"Why is Missoula, Montana, home to so many writers?"
That's the sort of question you get asked when you're the mayor of Missoula, Montana. And while your first instinct is to offer a matter-of-fact reply, something like: "We believe it has much to do with the abundant availability of inexpensive liquor," you know there's a more appropriate answer.
When you're born in Missoula, Montana, you're likely to take for granted the sense of place that folks long forgotten worked to cultivate and later preserve. You assume that the guy moving your piano is a poet and the woman pouring your coffee has a reading tonight at your independent bookstore and that your state's poet laureate connects school kids, many of them outsiders, to words and that those words lead to self-expression and that expression leads to realization and that realization leads to fully formed human beings who think for themselves and believe that some stuff in this life still matters in the midst of all this relentless damn noise and nonsense.
You take for granted that our piece of the West, while populated in part with images of Justin Bieber and some Real Housewives of Somewhere Else, is still a bit spare. There's still enough room to be lonely and, if you want, alone. You take for granted that the weather changes, that most of us are still in the same boat, that you've got to work, one way or another, to make it work here, and it ain't always easy.
You take for granted that people of character provide fodder for characters and that the facts are all over the place but you've got to look hard for the truth and one of the ways you do that is by fighting with words over sound and cadence and meaning and depth until you embrace a sentence that's just about perfect for the moment. And you add that sentence to the last hard-won turn of phrase and start in on the next one.
You take all that for granted when you're born here. But if you're from a place that's no longer a place and you ache for a reality that fuels imagination and you're a writer, want to be a writer or will become a writer despite your better judgment and warnings from family and friends, Missoula, Montana, is a discovery. It's a place and it's a place for writers. They are welcome, admired, respected and most likely have day jobs.
And if all that weren't enough, there's a book festival here every year. And it starts now.
Welcome, folks, to Missoula, Montana.
My name's John Engen, I'm the mayor, I'm a writer, and these welcoming remarks are titled "The Chamber of Commerce Will Not Approve."
