Wyoming cowboys, ranchers, waitresses and bartenders along with Japanese-Americans interned at Heart Mountain tell their life stories during and after World War II.
Drinking Dry Clouds is Gretel Ehrlich's storytelling in full swing. This inspired collection opens during World War II with the stories of cowboys, waitresses, and bartenders along with Japanese Americans interned at Wyoming's Heart Mountain. Many of these characters were introduced in Ehrlich's novel Heart Mountain. As she explains, "When I returned to my characters, five years after their initial appearance in my life, they seemed to want to report to me, so I let them speak in the first person." Gretel Ehrlich divides her time between California and Wyoming. She is the winner of a National Endowment for the Arts award, the American Academy of Arts and Letters for Distinguished Prose award, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. Her books include This Cold Heaven: Seven Seasons in Greenland, The Future of Ice: A Journey into Cold, and The Solace of Open Spaces.