Dan Aadland

I'm a rancher, retired teacher, and former Marine officer, but the role of writer has been my primary preoccupation since I learned to love the written word as a child. Early tastes included the best outdoor writers of the day, and of course Mark Twain, the master. After service in Viet Nam I attended the University of Utah, where I earned an MA in English and a Ph.D.in American Studies and creative writing. Then it was back to Montana for a busy life divided between ranching and teaching high school English and various extension courses for the university system.

But it's been my love of horses, of raising and training them, and my passion for riding a good horse under the Big Sky, that has spawned my best writing--SKETCHES FROM THE RANCH: A MONTANA MEMOIR; THE BEST OF ALL SEASONS: FIFTY YEARS AS A MONTANA HUNTER; and my newest and eighth, IN TRACE OF TR: A MONTANA HUNTER'S JOURNEY.

For that latest work I sought to know Theodore Roosevelt from the perspective of a fellow hunter, rancher, and horseman. I rode where he rode, hunted as he hunted, and found that the century intervening was but a skip in time between hunters' hearts. Apparently my approach has struck a chord--the book received a first place award in the Book Division of Excellence in Craft Awards from the Outdoor Writers Association of America in 2012.

--Dan Aadland