Donna L. Erickson is a consultant on open-space conservation in the Rocky Mountain West and was an associate professor of landscape architecture and planning at the University of Michigan for sixteen years. Erickson has published extensively in design, planning, and conservation journals and is the author of MetroGreen: Connecting Open Space in North American Cities. Her latest book is Rooted at the Edge: Ranching Where the Old West and New West Collide (Bison Books, 2025).

Three middle-aged women huddle around a lit candle near Skyline Ranch’s iconic Lone Pine in the North Hills. Cupcakes are involved. It is April 20, 2010, and we are celebrating one year of progress on the three nonfiction books we’ve been working on ‘together.’ 

Our three books relate, to greater or lesser extents, to Missoula, Montana’s Rattlesnake Valley, which we can see below as we talk and laugh in our lawn chairs. We called our little writing group Sense of Place in those early days; it morphed into Rockin’ R later. We liked the more whimsical name with its western vibe. 

Now it is 2025, more than fifteen years after our group formed. My book Rooted at the Edge: Ranching Where the Old West and New West Collide came out April 1. Rooted at the Edge is a portrait of a ranching community in a threatened landscape steeped in history, conflict, and beauty. In this narrative nonfiction work, I focus on the hilly skirt of ground at the northern boundary of Missoula, separating the town from the wilderness beyond. The book explores the past, present and future of three ranches in the North Hills. The North Hills region represents the critical—and often highly personal—issues at play at the edge of many western towns.

Rockin’ R pulled those personal stories out of me. I left an academic career of 17 years just three years before starting Rooted at the Edge. After the dry, passive-voice academic writing I was schooled in, I had to relearn writing in an engaging way for a general audience. No footnotes or citations involved. 

We read each of our draft chapters (and over time, second and third revisions) and then met for feedback. As I look back at my notes from those many sessions, I see consistent themes. The group didn’t understand some of my ranching jargon. “What is wrangling?”  “What does ‘pitching in’ mean?” 

But their consistent ‘ask’ was for more of me in the book.

“It’s unfurling at a nice pace. Strong voice but be more conversational and relaxed.”

“Invoke childhood memories. Needs more connection to your story—your own interpretive voice and professional connections.”

“I want more anecdotes about your grandparents; make them come alive. What did they look like? We need to know more about the people.” 

They helped with the people issue but also helped me capture that sense of place—our earliest quest. “Your voice is strongest and most passionate when I can make more visceral connections to place.”

“We need to feel all the senses…what did you see but also smell and hear?”

“Needs more action and suspense.”

We met at each other’s houses but sometimes went on out-of-town writing retreats. We worked at a historic home in quaint Philipsburg, Montana, where we taped big sheets of paper to the walls to illustrate the flow of chapters in our burgeoning books. We created writing retreats at other western Montana venues—a horse ranch in Lolo and a lake house at Big Sky Lake. 

We took a jaunt to the coast in fall 2018, staying in Newport, Oregon for a few days of beach walking and hunkering down in the library of the literary-themed Sylvia Beach Hotel. At that point, I decided to ditch the book idea altogether and focus on magazine articles with the material I’d written. That idea didn’t stick. 

Our group expanded to four women after one member moved away and couldn’t participate in person. We added another local author and between the four of us and have published five books since we began: Halcyon Journey (Oregon State University Press) by Marina Richie, Bold Women in Montana History (Mountain Press) by Beth Judy, along with Disturbing the Sleeping Buffalo (Far Country Press) and Black Robes Enter Coyote’s World (Bison Books) by Sally Thompson. Rooted at the Edge would not exist without the steady and insightful guidance of Rockin’ R. I recommend the accountability, support, and shared wisdom of a writing group to anyone working in solitude on their book. A lot has been written about the purposes, composition, and functioning of writers groups. Check that out, and here’s wishing you good luck in finding the perfect partners. 

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View upcoming events with Donna L. Erickson here.