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Apertures: Findings from a Rural Life

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.

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At Home in the Elk River Valley

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.

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Ankle High and Knee Deep

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.

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