Writers on the Range is a book by seventeen westerners about the American West. It is a story of place, mostly good but sometimes bad, a celebration of community, or at least its potential, and a tribute to the men and women, neither saints nor devils, who are the heart and soul of this land of desert, prairie, and forested mountain. Yet it is also much more. It is the melding of diverse western minds, backgrounds and beliefs -- ranchers and one-time ranchwives, poets and policy tinkerers, essayists and hunters, journalists and political theorists, and community organizers and urban refugees -- into a fierce resolve to stake claim and take a stand for a land that is loved in common.
Simply put, Writers on the Range is a call to citizenship -- a declaration that love of place, respect of land, and regard for one's neighbor demand from each of us engagement and responsibility. It is the challenge to all of us, not just the writers, to see beyond convention and to find in the mystery and richness of the West a future that is more cooperative, more local, and more attuned to the needs and harmonies of both people and nature.
