The Great Falls Public Library warmly welcomes Montana author Leslie Budewitz for an author talk/reading on Tuesday, May 13 from 5:30 to 6:30 pm in the Cordingley Room. She will read excerpts from her book All God’s Sparrows and Other Stories, published by Beyond the Page.
In All God’s Sparrows and Other Stories, Budewitz brings together three short stories, each originally published in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, imagining the life of Stagecoach Mary in her first year in Montana, and a novella exploring her later life. Born into slavery in Tennessee, the remarkable “Stagecoach Mary” Fields was a larger-than-life figure who cherished her independence, yet formed a deep bond with the Ursuline Sisters, traveling to their Montana mission in 1885 and spending the last thirty years of her life living there or in nearby Cascade. Mary is believed to have been the first Black woman in the country to drive a U.S. Postal Star Route, the source of her nickname.
Leslie is a three-time Agatha Award winner: 2011 Best Nonfiction for her guide for writers, Books, Crooks & Counselors: How to Write Accurately About Criminal Law & Courtroom Procedure; 2013 Best First Novel for Death al Dente (making her the first author to win Agatha Awards for both fiction and nonfiction); and 2018 Best Short Story (in a tie) for All God’s Sparrows, her first historical fiction. Her work has also won or been nominated for Spur, Derringer, Anthony, and Macavity awards.
A Montana native, Leslie graduated from Seattle University and Notre Dame Law School.
Cassiopeia Books will have have copies of Budewitz’s titles available for sale after the reading, as well!
For more information, contact Jake Sorich at jsorich@greatfallslibrary.org or 406-453-0349 ex. 220.
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