Rising from the grassy floor of the Great Plains of western South Dakota and northeastern Wyoming are the Black Hills, home of legend and mystery. Known to the Lakota Indians as Paha Sapa, these hills include the Bear Lodge Mountains and Devils Tower-Mato Tipila, or Bear Lodge. The work read at the Bearlodge Writers' table draws not only from this ancient landscape, but reaches beyond it around the nation, around the world, and into fantasy.

The Bearlodge Writers (BLW) have been meeting twice a month in Sundance, Wyoming, since 1979. The Hills have drawn us from different directions, and we come from different vocations, as well. But we are all writers and aspire to contribute to the world of literature.

We encourage and support one another in our writing endeavors, help each other improve our work, share information, and provide workshops and writing retreats. By drawing on the fine-tuned balance within the group, and with deep respect for one another's work, we produce poetry, essays, articles, columns, novels, nonfiction books, and short stories. Our published work ripples outward-regionally, nationally, internationally.

Here, in the shadow of the Bear Lodge, we live close to the elements, letting nature and the land nurture us and settle into our bones. Through the pleasure and power of words, we discover joy, beauty, sanity and serenity, guidance, deep connection . . . and sometimes triumph.

Chocolate and red pens! Bear Lodge writers wield both with good cheer and skill as they support each other in their writing. Meeting monthly for more than forty years, members of Bear Lodge Writers have been widely published, spreading their work to readers everywhere. In these pages you will find writing "from Tiananmen to Vilnius," from Maine to the Medicine Bow, deep as roots can burrow and high as mountains and eagles can soar. Their voices echo and sing, piercing the fog of our daily lives, bringing new hymns of entertainment, reflection, grief, healing, and contentment. Gaydell Collier, one of the group's founders, to whom this collection is dedicated, would be proud. Add Spirit of the Bear Lodge to your library; read it with gratitude, joy, and hope.
-Linda M. Hasselstrom, Gathering from the Grassland, High Plains Press, and other titles.

Dedicated to Gaydell Collier, a founding member of Bearlodge Writers, Spirit of the Bear: A Bearlodge Writers Anthology is a collaboratively-edited anthology that is both gracefully and thoughtfully organized-filled with carefully selected and well-crafted pieces. In richly detailed imagery and finely-wrought language, the works in this anthology reveal a strong connection to questions of place and community. A testament to writing community and writing in community, this book brings to beautiful fruition the presence, talent, collaboration, and craft of Bearlodge Writers. This anthology is a celebration of individual voices working cooperatively to further their writerly talents in unison, and it is a powerful and engaging collection.
-Lee Ann Roripaugh, Author of Tsunami vs. the Fukushima 50