Distinctly Montana spoke with Florio about her favorite places in Montana, works-in-progress, what she’s reading, and eating camp stove ramen on book tours. It was a lively and funny conversation that underscored how much she has to offer readers who crave the fast-paced and gritty stories that she tells so well.
The thing I love most about Montana is: the warmth and friendliness of the people no matter if they live in a small town like where I live (Superior) or Missoula (where we lived for four years)
For centuries, the traditional meal of Cornish tin miners was the pasty. Made daily by wives and mothers, pasties were the perfect portable meal: a miscellany of vegetables and meat encased and baked in a D-shaped pastry shell.
She went to retrieve a hat from a trunk, and as she rifled through its contents, she somehow accidentally discharged the pistol into her own head. Suspicion immediately fell on the magician, but after multiple people, including the girl’s mother, said that there was no way that the kindly magician could have killed her, he was found not guilty.
Montana's rich heritage is near and dear to my heart. My desire to learn about that history through the early inhabitants of the land leads to the opportunity to help tell the story of the growth of our society in the West. Reflecting upon the difficulties early peoples faced as they developed a civilization helps tell the story of 19th and 20th century America.
On the last full day of Paul Maclean's life, Sunday, May 1, 1938, he had about $50 in his wallet, having cashed a two-week paycheck. He took his girlfriend, Lois Nash, twenty-nine, a redheaded Irish nurse, to an afternoon White Sox game at Comiskey Park at Thirty-Fifth and Shields.
Paul is a shadow person in my life. He has shaped my life without me being fully conscious of it. When I got into the news business, I discovered that it was exactly where I should be. I’m sure that was partly due to Paul’s example. But he was a negative example, too.
Home Waters is many things—a son’s exegesis of his father’s work, a memoir of a childhood spent fishing in Montana, an investigation into the death of a family member who is also the subject of a beloved novel, and, above all, a companion piece to Norman Maclean’s A River Runs Through It.
Cast was first printed in an English document as long ago as 1230, borrowed from an Old Norse verb kasta, “to throw.” This original sense carries through in our modern phrases cast the first stone, cast a net, cast the dice.
Like the Medical Clinic, all of the exhibits are intended to promote "real-life play." In the wonderfully imaginative displays children will explore a different side of Great Falls, here reimagined as the kid-sized community of "Little Falls."
Norman Maclean was not born in Montana, nor did he die here. His published work is slim, especially when compared to A.B. Guthrie or Ivan Doig. But I wager that if you asked people what piece of writing best exemplifies Montana, many would respond A River Runs Through It.
But amidst the Olympian chaos and drama was a goddess who worked quietly on behalf of humanity: Hygiea, the Greek personification of good health. Hygiea learned the healing arts from her father, a powerful god of medicine.
"My favorite kind of book to read is one that skirts genre in interesting ways. I received my M.A. in poetry, and I began studying writing seriously as an undergrad by writing non-fiction; but I find that the books and the writing that I’m drawn to most are those that refuse categorization."
When they let me out of high school I didn't have a hat. That was okay. John Kennedy showed you you didn't need a hat to be successful. Kennedy was the first president since Abe Lincoln who was never photographed in a cowboy hat or Indian war bonnet. He got elected anyway, and girls liked him too. So much for hats.
McKenna has this to say: "I have traveled the world widely, and I can say with absolute honesty that there is nowhere else in the world I'd rather live than Montana! Montana embodies my spirit, my breath, and my life. Most days I need look no further than out my window to be inspired."
I’ve worked for more than 20 years as a newspaper reporter, and the last seven years as a television news reporter for KXLF in Butte. It’s important to note that it takes a dedicated and talented team to put together the daily broadcasts. Each day we start from zero to produce what, at times, seems like a daily miracle.
The Treasure State was the birthplace of two of the biggest movie stars of the golden age of American cinema: Gary Cooper and Myrna Loy. If readers don’t recognize the names, they would do well to look into them.
If there is one place where Old West meets New it’s at the rodeo, where broncin’ buckaroos, flashy cowgirls and murderous bulls enjoy a few hours, all together in a large, penned arena. With so much ruckus it definitely (still) pays to have a bit of luck on your side so never, absolutely never, wear a yellow shirt while competing.
The Big Director gets on his chair with the camera attached to the hydraulic crane and yells, “Back to one!”, meaning everyone is at their starting position. For me, it’s sitting in front of my keno machine, ready to repeatedly push a button. “Masks off!” the Big Director yells.
