Like the two previous anthologies created by editors
Linda Hasselstrom, Gaydell Collier and Nancy Curtis, Leaning into
the Wind and Woven on the Wind, Crazy Woman Creek gathers hundreds
of poems, stories and memories from women all across the West. This
latest anthology’s theme is how Western women create and
sustain the connections that define community.
The women
whose voices fill these pages are not all professional writers.
They’re ranch wives, compulsive gamblers, school board
members and nuns, with stories to share that range from
heart-wrenching to hilarious. They’re tough, compassionate,
sassy and wise.
B.J. Buckley’s poem epitomizes
Western women rallying to help each other. An exhausted ranch wife
comes in late to the laundromat with piles of filthy clothes from
calf branding. The other women abandon their own laundry to help
with hers, then clean the mud off her pickup. Finally, they
“(stand) that girl in the laundry sink (and wash) her down like a
county fair horse,” then dress her up in sparkly prom gown and
strappy heels. As she drives off, one of them comments, “if we ever
see her again, we oughta ask her last name, I guess.”
Stories such as this one show us how to weave both old-timers and
newcomers into the weft of community, how to foster neighborliness.
As one contributor notes, whether longtime resident or recent
arrival, traditional rancher or modem cowgirl, those of us in the
West “love the same place, and want the same thing.”
Crazy Woman Creek: Women Rewrite the American
West
Edited by Linda M. Hasselstrom, Gaydell Collier and
Nancy Curtis
300 pages, softcover: $14.00
Houghton Mifflin Company, 2004.
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Dang crazy women.
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
