Although she was born and raised in Southern California, Gretel Ehrlich has been dubbed the Walt Whitman of Wyoming. Her first nonfiction book, The Solace of Open Spaces (1985), set in Wyoming sheep-ranching country, was an overnight success, winning literary awards and attracting serious academic criticism. Ehrlich's background as a documentary moviemaker has enabled her to bring a visual style to her poetry and prose. Her writing provides the reader with vivid imagery, such as close-ups of male chests, "panned" vistas in which Wyoming rivers appear as "green veins," "camera angles" abruptly "cutting" from under sagebrush to the inside of a sheep wagon, and dramatic lighting to conjure wild weather, softness, or mystery.

Ehrlich was born in Santa Barbara, California, on 1 January 1946 to Grant C. and Gretchen Woerz Ehrlich. Her father was a business consultant. She attended Bennington College in Vermont, the University of California at Los Angeles Film...