A Life of Her Own: Five Tales of Homestead Women (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780990352778)

Mae Schick is a former English language teacher and language school owner who has written extensively her entire life. She was raised in Montana, and although the Homestead Acts came to a halt before she was born, she grew up among "ancients" who had a part in the fascinating era of the settling of the West. Occasionally she meets up with a homesteading descendant who has a story or two about growing up on the "old place." Her first book was 53 Bears, a series of vignettes from her early childhood to her college years, two of which have been published in Montana anthologies. Her novel Lila, and her short stories about woman homesteaders, were inspired by the relatively unheralded experiences of strong women finding ways to become self-reliant in the American West. Many of her characters are drawn from the written histories of these women, and conversations she had growing up in a community of mostly elderly people, some who were raised on homesteads, including her parents. Her characters start off in difficulty, dissatisfaction, or in feeling unfulfilled. Circumstances compel them to leave what is familiar and move out West. At the heart of her stories are women facing new challenges, making life-changing choices, and forging relationships. Ms. Schick lives in Bigfork, Montana on Flathead Lake where she is working on Minna, her latest novel