'Lively and engaging conversations' - "Publishers Weekly". 'Morris is a stirring interviewer, flattering and riling his subjects as necessary...Each writer's personality comes through loud and clear, whether he or she is considering the finer points of literature or telling funny stories' - "Booklist". 'Valuable insights into what direction the new western literary tradition seems to be headed' - "Library Journal". In interviews with fifteen contemporary writers of the American West, Gregory L. Morris demonstrates what these widely divergent talents have in common: they all redefine what it is to be a western writer.No longer enthralled (though sometimes inspired) by the literary traditions of openness, place, and rugged individualism, each of the writers has remained true to the demand for clarity, strength, and honesty, virtues sustained in their conversations. Morris talks with Ralph Beer, Mary Clearman Blew, Elizabeth Cook-Lynn, James Crumley, Ivan Doig, Gretel Ehrlich, Richard Ford, Molly Gloss, Ron Hansen, John Keeble, William Kittredge, David Long, Thomas McGuane, Amy Tan, and Douglas Unger. Their lives and fiction stretch from Montana to Texas, from ranches to universities, from sea level to mountain slopes. Gregory L. Morris is an associate professor of American literature at The Pennsylvania State University-Erie, The Behrend College.