Interview with Author Mary Anne Mercer

  

Questions: 

 

1. What inspired you to write this book?

 

2. What exactly is it about — and who is it written for?

 

3. What do you hope readers will get out of reading your book?

 

4. How did you decide on your book’s title and cover design?

 

5. What advice or words of wisdom do you have for fellow writers – other than run!?

 

6. What trends in the book world do you see -- and where do you think the book publishing industry is heading? 

 

7. Were there experiences in your personal life or career that came in handy when writing this book? 

 

8. How would you describe your writing style? Which writers or books is your writing similar to?

 

9. What challenges did you overcome in the writing of this book?

 

10. If people can buy or read one book this week or month, why should it be yours?

 

Answers:

 

1. I was inspired to write this book after many years of immersion in my family history, finally yielding to the desire to document it. I lived that history during my childhood, spending time with my grandfather and great aunt in the original 1908 ranch house, next to our family home. I rode our horses, explored the many outbuildings, and went to the same one-room country school that my father had attended. The history, the homestead, the traditions, and the rural neighborhood were familiar to me in a way that I wanted to capture for future generations. Although I never knew my paternal grandmother, I was fortunate to have her diary, giving me insights into her perspectives and personality. In addition, since I had access to a wealth of family photos, I was able to show as well as describe people and scenes from that time and place.

 

2. This family history narrative tells the true story of a man who settled in the American West in the early 1900s, living the core American values of independence, determination, and respect for the land. It’s about my grandfather Andy and his journey at the turn of the century from rural Missouri via Wyoming to become a rancher and entrepreneur in Eastern Montana. It also tells about his love for his bride Florrie, and the short time they had together before her untimely death. Finally, it’s about the son born to them, my father Russell, who lived through a motherless childhood, struggling to find his place in the world until he met and married my mother. Based on a range of published sources, diary entries, news articles, interviews, and personal memories of the author and other family members, Crossing the Yellowstone is a classic American drama of challenges met, and legacies left.

 

3. I would like readers of the book to be taken to another place and time, the early days of the

20 th century in rural Montana. I had the unique opportunity to grow up with both the traditions and culture of that time. I was part of a community that has today become a rarity.

 

4. For the cover I wanted, most of all, to illustrate that this was about the “real Montana,” not a fantasized version of the West. The front cover is our pasture with the expansive blue sky I

remember so well, with images of the key characters in the book.

 

5. My only advice for fellow writers in my genre is simply to “write what you know.” I lived a distinctive rural Montana life growing up, and showing that place and culture to the world

became a driving force for writing the book. Similarly, I had lived in rural Nepal, and that  

experience was so important to my future life and work that I felt compelled—even many years later—to show that world to anyone interested in that uniquely beautiful country.

 

6. Book publishing seems to be evolving from domination by the big publishers to one that

provides better access for writers like me to be able to tell their stories. Smaller, independent

and sometimes hybrid publishers are expanding the range of what can be published and even,

in some cases, widely disseminated.

 

7. As noted above – it was my growing up on the family ranch that compelled me to write this

book. In addition, when I spent time in rural Nepal I was fascinated to see the similarities with

the culture that I’d grown up with--so different and yet with commonalities that I suspect are true of many other rural settings. 

 

8. My writing style is quite simple, owing in part to my public health career that involved

academic writing. In these books I aim to describe as clearly as possible what I saw, or

imagined I would see, in two very different settings.

 

9. Moving from writing memoir in the Nepal book to the creative nonfiction genre of Crossing the Yellowstone was challenging, as I found myself needing to inhabit the characters in my family who were subjects of the book. I was personally acquainted with my grandfather and father, but my grandmother Florrie had died over a century before, so I had only artifacts to work from. But Florrie was a nurse, as I was, and had traveled from her home to live in a very different culture, as I had done. Those common experiences helped me to envision the world she saw and the life she had those many years ago.

 

I found myself reading extensively about the settings – from the trails that led west from

Missouri, the colorful history of Wyoming at that time, and then on to the early days of ranching and of our small town’s development. Making the historical details of the book as real as I possibly could was my primary challenge, but I found vast troves of information online. For example, I wanted to show what a traveler would encounter riding horseback from northeast Wyoming to Montana in 1906, and finding very specific photos and descriptions of that place around that time was easier than I expected.

 

10. Someone who wants to read a real story about real people at a real place and

time—Montana in the early 20 th century—should read this book. It will be of interest to those wanting a true story of early settlers in the American west -- the struggles they faced and the conditions of their lives, including those of children born in that era. A secondary group of readers might like to hear about Britishers such as my grandmother who migrated to the US and were drawn to life in the West. My grandparents were visionaries, and my parents true pioneers of the astonishing changes that came during that time. Writing a book about what they went through gives me an immense appreciation for what was passed down to me. These family stories are a true legacy. 

Author Bio: With an academic career in international health, I have worked in many countries in Africa and Asia, focusing on strategies to improve the health and survival of pregnant women and their children. But I spent my formative years on the family ranch in eastern Montana with my parents and six siblings. My grandfather and great-aunt lived nearby in the original 1906 ranch house on the homestead. Crossing the Yellowstone brings to life the tale of my paternal grandparents and parents, spanning the period from 1894 to the 1940s. My previous book was Beyond the Next Village: A Year of Magic and Medicine in Nepal. For more info, please see: https://maryannemercer.com/ 

 

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