Surveying the Canadian Pacific

William Kittredge was an American writer, born August 14, 1932 in Portland, Oregon. He grew up in Portland and was a rancher until he was 35. He graduated from Oregon State University with a degree in agriculture, and from the University of Iowa with a M.F.A. He spent most of his life in Montana. He spent most of his life in Montana. He taught creative writing at the University of Montana in Missoula, MT for 30 years.

His writing focused on the west. He wrote fourteen books, and published essays and articles in major magazines and newspapers. His work includes novels, Phantom Silver (1987) and The Willow Field (2007). His nonfiction includes Owning it All (1987), Hole in the Sky: A Memoir (1992), The Nature of Generosity (2001), and The Next Rodeo: New and Selected Essays (2006). He edited an anthology with Annick Smith, The Last Best Place: A Montana Anthology (1990).

His awards included a Stegner Fellowship at Stanford and Writing Fellowships from the Endowment for the Arts. In 2017, received a Lifetime Achievement Award the at Montana Book Festival.

William Kittredge died on December 4, 2020 in Missoula, Montana. He was 88 years old.

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