William Kittredge taught creative writing for 29 years at The University of Montana. He is the author of two collections of short fiction, The Van Gogh Fields and Other Stories (1979) and We Are Not In This Together (1984); a novel, The Willow Field (2006); a memoir, Hole in the Sky (1992); and three collections of essays, Owning It All (1987), Who Owns the West (1996) and The Next Rodeo: New and Selected Essays (2006). He has received a Stegner Fellowship, two NEA Fellowships, the Los Angeles Times Award for Lifetime Achievement, and numerous other awards. He was co-editor with Annick Smith of The Last Best Place: A Montana Anthology and co-producer of A River Runs Through It. Kittredge has published essays and articles in over 50 magazines, including Atlantic, Harper's, Esquire, Time, Newsweek, The Washington Post, and The New York Times.