Profile
Lara Richardson has a special place in Western’s heart. Not only was she in the first cohort of the MFA with a concentration in Nature Writing, she is the first to have her book published by Western Press Books.
Her memoir, which started as her thesis, is entitled The Table, and will be released this November. The book recounts her experience as a Colorado rancher, mother of five, and steward to land, family, and food. From raising grass-fed beef and working the land, to growing and making her own food for her family, she pursues genuine living that honors body, soul, family, and place. She is a voice for land stewardship, sustainable beef production, and the family farm. A former white-water rafting guide on the Arkansas River, she now lives with her husband and kids on their family ranch in Salida, Colorado, where they raise 250 Hereford mother cows and calves and grow over 30,000 bales of hay each summer.
We interviewed her to find out more about her life, her work, and her writing.
Tell us a bit about this book and how it came to be:
As a student in Western’s Graduate Program in Creative Writing/Nature Writing, I knew I wanted to write my thesis about my family and our ranching life. It soon became clear as I wrote the essays for the varying class assignments that my thesis was slowly being formed as each semester went by.
How important is place to you? Can you tell us how words and land intertwine for you?
It has taken time to feel like I am really “from” this place. I have needed to interact with it, experience life here—have my heart broken and rebuilt, experience successes and failures, and create memories and history. Even though I was not born here, this place feels as though it is a part of me, or that I am a part of it. I feel as though I change with the seasons and feel the drought and the rain and the sigh that comes with the slowness of fall or the energy of spring. When I take the time to still myself and write about this place and all that happens here, it adds weight to time and slows down this busy life enough to have eyes to see and ears to hear. These wide fields, majestic mountains, and intimate spaces within the trees all settle and inspire me to lead a better and more meaningful life as I trade stress, worry, and frailty for beauty, peace, and strength. The land offers the gift of perspective, reminding me of what is truly important in life. Writing about these special places allows me to share them with others who may never be here in person.
Tell us how your experience in the MFA program at Western helped with this project:
Being a part of Western’s MFA program carved out space and time for me to write and read. As a rancher, wife, and mom of five, there’s little time for me, and much less time for me to write. Deadlines are a powerful motivator, especially when coupled with a caring and talented cohort of writers who are all putting their soul into their words to be critiqued by the group as well.
The incredible professors, who are all actively writing and being published, give their sincere feedback, life experience, and their outstanding knowledge of the craft. The reading list for the program opened my eyes to a myriad of methods, techniques, styles, and voices; I gleaned what I felt was most valuable to becoming the writer I want to be. Inspiring writers showed me ways to grow, risk, and start.
For years, I have dreamed of writing a book, and being a part of this program set that dream in motion—not just in theory, but in a tangible and productive way that helped me to create a complete, polished, and submittable manuscript.
And how did it come to be published?
Western Press Books stands behind the Nature Writing program by publishing one manuscript from either a current graduate or an alumni each year. When I finally let some of my family read my thesis, and when they told me I needed to “get this out there,” it felt like a natural next step to submit the manuscript to Western Press Books. Hitting “send” that day was a huge step for me. Though I had plenty of practice submitting smaller pieces throughout my time in the program, it felt very monumental and weighty to actually submit the full manuscript I had put my heart into for so many months. And then the day came when the email arrived from Dr. Steve Coughlin saying they had chosen my manuscript for publication. I was elated. We are now in the final editing stages, and I could not be more thankful for this opportunity.
