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Judy Blunt spent more than thirty years on wheat and cattle ranches in northeastern Montana, before leaving in 1986 to attend the University of Montana. Her poems and essays have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies. She is the recipient of a Jacob K. Javits Graduate Fellowship and a Montana Arts Council Individual Artist Fellowship. Breaking Clean was awarded a 1997 PEN/Jerard Fund Award for a work in progress, as well as a 2001 Whiting Writers' Award. She lives in Missoula, Montana.
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Q: How did you come to write this book?
A: I wrote the title essay, Breaking Clean, in one evening as a
classroom assignment when I was a second year journalism major at the University
of Montana. It was for a literature class called Montana Writers, led by the
passionate and energetic Professor William Bevis. As part of our mid-term
project, he assigned us to "write your Montana experience" in four pages or
less. As a thirty-something ex-ranchwife, third generation Montanan, my story
was perhaps more difficult to capture in four typewritten pages than those of my
classmates, most of whom were under twenty and could count the months of their "Montana experience" on their fingers. Still, I gave it a shot. Ever
attentive to duty, I squeezed the first three decades of my life onto four
pages--only by fudging the line spacing and margins did I make it fit--and in
the process of compressing scenes, I accidentally wrote an essay. I turned it
in, and went on with my journalism studies. A couple of weeks later, I felt
exposed and a bit reluctant when Professor Bevis approached me in class and
asked permission to read my essay aloud. He was kind but adamant, and finally I
agreed.
What happened next changed my life. He ...
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