Gretel Ehrlich is an American author of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. Educated at Bennington College and the UCLA film school, she has written extensively about the landscapes, people, and cultures of the American West and the Arctic.
Drinking Dry Clouds: Stories from Wyoming is a collection of fourteen linked short stories set in Wyoming during and after the Second World War. The stories portray cowboys, ranch hands, waitresses, bartenders, Japanese Americans interned at the Heart Mountain Relocation Center, and others living in the surrounding ranching communities. Several stories revisit characters from Ehrlich’s novel Heart Mountain, while the later stories follow individuals negotiating the aftermath of war, personal loss, and the difficulties of returning to ordinary life. The collection explores the lives of its characters against the setting of Wyoming’s ranch country and its small, isolated communities.
Notes adapted from the publisher's description.
