Mary Clearman Blew grew up on a small cattle ranch in Montana, on the site of her great-grandfather’s 1882 homestead. Her memoir "All But the Waltz: Essays on a Montana Family," won a Pacific Northwest Booksellers Award, as did her short story collection, "Runaway." A novel, "Jackalope Dreams," appeared in 2008 and won the Western Heritage Center’s prize for fiction. Other awards include the Mahan Award for contributions to Montana literature, the Idaho Humanities Council’s 2001 Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Humanities, a Handcart Award for Biography, and the Western Literature Association’s Lifetime Achievement Award. She has taught creative writing at the University of Idaho since 1994.Mary Clearman Blew grew up on a small cattle ranch in Montana, on the site of her great-grandfather’s 1882 homestead. Her memoir "All But the Waltz: Essays on a Montana Family," won a Pacific Northwest Booksellers Award, as did her short story collection, "Runaway." A novel, "Jackalope Dreams," appeared in 2008 and won the Western Heritage Center’s prize for fiction. Other awards include the Mahan Award for contributions to Montana literature, the Idaho Humanities Council’s 2001 Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Humanities, a Handcart Award for Biography, and the Western Literature Association’s Lifetime Achievement Award. She has taught creative writing at the University of Idaho since 1994.