William Kittredge was born in Oregon in 1932 and grew up on a working ranch in the Warner Valley of southeastern Oregon. He attended Oregon State University (1954) and University of Iowa (M.F.A. 1969). He taught in the English Department at the University of Montana from 1969 until his retirement in 1997. His awards include a Stegner Fellowship to attend the writing program at Stanford University, two National Endowment for the Arts creative writing fellowships, two Pacific Northwest Bookseller's Awards, National Governor's Award for the Arts, the PEN West Award, and the National Endowment for the Humanities' Charles Frankle Prize for service to the humanities, Neil Simon Award from American Playhouse. He is the author of numerous essays, short stories and novels, including the Cord series of western novels written under the pseudonym Owen Rountree. With Annick Smith, Kittredge was the co-producer of A River Runs Through It, based on the novella by Norman Maclean.
A list of his publications includes:
- Kittredge, William.
Balancing Water: Restoring the Klamath Basin. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press,
2000.
- Kittredge, William.
The Portable Western Reader.New York: Penguin Books, 1997.
- Kittredge, William.
Who owns the West?San Francisco: Mercury House, 1996.
- Kittredge,
William. Lost Cowboys (But Not Forgotten).New York: Library Fellows of the Whitney Museum of
American Art, 1992.
- Kittredge, William.
The healthiest girl in town.
The Interior Country: Stories of the Modern West.Athens, Ohio: Swallow Press/Ohio University
Press, 1987.
- Kittredge, William.
Livestock.
Ranching Traditions: Legacy of the American West.New York: Abbeville Press, 1989.
- Kittredge, William.
Owning It All: Essays.Saint Paul, Minn.: Graywolf Press, 1987.
- Kittredge, William.
The Van Gogh Field and Other Stories.Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1978.
From the guide to the William Kittredge Papers, R 4. 1., 1954-2000 and undated, (Southwest Collection/Special Collections Library, Texas Tech University)
