French philosopher Nicolas Malebranche wrote, ‘Attention is the natural prayer of the soul.’ If this is true, then Mary Kurtz is a woman who lives her life in prayer, lavishing attention on the land she’s rooted to: the Elk River Valley in the alpine altitudes of northern Colorado, where her family ranch lies. With Apertures: Findings from a Rural Life, she joins the great tradition of Western American literature, conveying the beauty of the land on a scale both vast and intimate. She gives us both the close-ups and the big picture in her crystalline, contemplative essays.
-Jenny Shank, author of
Mixed Company, Colorado Book Award Winner and George
Garrett Fiction Prize Winner, and
The Ringer, winner of the High Plains Book Award in fiction and finalist for the Mountains & Plains Independent Booksellers Association’s Reading the West Book Awards.
Readers who love the West will find this book to be an insightful journey into the history, natural world, and community of a special mountain valley near Steamboat Springs, Colorado. Walk through the Elk River Valley with Mary as she shares her thoughtful perspectives on the people, history, rich landscape, and ranching traditions of the place she has called home for over thirty years.
Mary’s essays, “Bugsy” and “Daddy’s Girl,” are anthologized in Ankle High and Knee Deep.
Ankle High and Knee Deep: Women Reflect on Western Rural Living, an anthology, is written by ranch women, cowgirls, and farmers about their day to day lives on the land. This collection of inspirational and contemporary voices offers accounts of women struggling to keep a lifestyle intact, recollections of childhoods spent in open spaces, and tales of overcoming obstacles–inspirational reading for city dwellers and country folk, alike.
SEA of WORDS Charting a Course from Imagination to Publication
March 2, 2023
Writing It Real
March 2, 2023
Speckled Trout Review
Volume 3
Fall 2021
The Hong Kong Review
Vol III, No. 1
September 2021
A Writer’s Workshop Review
Volume 15
April 21, 2021
BlueHouse Journal
Issue 3
November 2020
Braided Way: Faces and Voices of Spiritual Practice
September 28, 2020
Amsterdam Quarterly
Writing and art in the Netherlands and the world - Issue 28
The Colorado Sun’s “Write On” COVID19 project
May 19, 2020
Featured on “The Waking,” a blog published by Ruminate, a contemplative literary arts magazine.
December 3, 2019
Sea of Words: Charting a Course from Imagination to Publications
Why We Write Series
April 15, 2015
Sea of Words: Charting a Course from Imagination to Publications
Why We Write Series
March 23, 2014
2023 Nautilus Silver Award for Memoir
2023 Women Writing the West Willa literary Award Finalist for Nonfiction
Writing It Real Essay Contest 1st Place Winner
2012 National Indie Excellence Book Award Finalist for Regional Nonfiction
2012 Colorado Independent Publishers Association’s Bronze EVVY Award
Featured at the Regis University Mile High MFA 2019 Graduation