BREAKING CLEAN: From a NWC press release: Judy Blunt, author of Breaking Clean, an award-winning memoir of ranch life in Montana, will talk about her work at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, March 28, in the Nelson Performing Arts Center Auditorium at Northwest College in Powell. A book signing will follow the reading. The Chicago Tribune describes her prose as "Breathtaking….Blunt's writing is visceral, yet never without humor and a raw, fierce honesty." Blunt wrote the book's title essay in one evening to fulfill a class assignment at the University of Montana in Missoula. The remainder of the book was written over the course of 10 years in what she calls "a frustrating jumble of stolen hours and fragmented weeks." Breaking Clean won the 1997 PEN/Jerard Fund Award for a work in progress, as well as a 2001 Whiting Writers' Award, the 2003 Mountains and Plains Book Award and the 2003 Willa Award for memoir/nonfiction. The memoir was also listed as a New York Times Notable Book. In 2004, Blunt received a National Endowment for the Arts creative writing fellowship. Blunt's poems and essays have appeared in numerous anthologies and journals, with recent short pieces appearing in Oprah magazine, New York Times, Big Sky Journal and others. She teaches courses in creative nonfiction and western women's memoir at the University of Montana. FMI: Nickie Proffitt, NWC, 307-754-6033.
