Festival looks at literature along the Medicine Line
Published: August 26, 2008
The seventh annual Helena Festival of the Book, Oct. 8-12, celebrates life, culture and literature along the Medicine Line. This year’s festival features acclaimed writers Kirby Larson, author of the award-winning young adult novel Hattie Big Sky, and Joseph Marshall III, a Lakota historian and novelist, author of Hundred in the Hand, as well as numerous other books.
The festival also includes a panel discussion by tribal historians involved in Montana’s Tribal Histories project, in which tribal colleges are creating their own historical documents telling their tribal history through their own perspectives. Some of these tribal histories will be available for the first time this fall.
During a panel discussion, “Boundarylines and Crossings,” Canadian and Montana writers will explore life, law and literature along the Montana/Canada border. Special guest on this panel is award-winning Canadian author Tony Rees, author of Arc of the Medicine Line: Mapping the World’s Longest Undefended Border Across the Western Plains, and Hope’s Last Home, a study of the Milk River region. This panel discussion will take place in the historic Supreme Court Chambers in the Montana Capitol, followed by a reception in the Capitol rotunda.
Gala readings include Montana’s poet laureate, Greg Pape; memoirist Susanna Sonnenberg (author of Her Last Death); poet Rusty Morrison (author of the true keeps calm biding its story); Russell Rowland (The Watershed Years); Michael Melneck (Old Music); and author Ellen Baumler and photographer J.M. Cooper, who collaborated on Dark Spaces: Montana’s Historic Penitentiary at Deer Lodge.
As usual, the festival offers its traditional writers’ workshops in fiction, memoir, essay and the fine art of getting published. Advance registration is required, and fees are charged for these sessions.
All other festival events are free. More information is online at helenabookfest.com, or email .
